Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship

slideshow The INQUIRY&

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Slideshow and The Inquiry The Journals of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship and Mellon Mays Fellowship Programs Dedicated to Undergraduate Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Published by The Center for the Humanities and the College of Arts and Sciences Washington University in St. Louis May 2011 contents

Editor’s note______iv

Foreword (Slideshow)______v Gerald Early Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters Faculty Director of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellows Program Director of the Center for the Humanities Washington University in St. Louis

All in the Family? HIV/AIDS, Disability, and Informal Caregiving Networks Michael Dango______1

“Drawing is Nonetheless the Female and Painting the Male”: The Rehabilitation of Color and Decoration by Henri Matisse and His Critics Betty Gibson______25

A Coincidental Cup of Kenyan Coffee: SNCC and Malcolm X Recast the Struggle in Nairobi Howie Rudnick______39

Biographies for the authors of Slideshow______59 contents

Foreword (The Inquiry)______63 Shanti A. Parikh Associate Professor of Anthropology and African & African American Studies MMUF Academic Coordinator Washington University in St. Louis

Joseph D. Thompson Senior Lecturer in African & African American Studies Educational Archivist for Film and Media MMUF Academic Coordinator Washington University in St. Louis

Meet Me at the Crossroads: A Revitalized Analysis of Race, Preference, and Affirmative Action Kimberly L. Daily ______65

“Nigga What, Nigga Who”: “Nigga” as a Tool of Characterization and Social Critique in The Boondocks Naia H. Ferguson______75

Knowledge, Society, and the State: Civil Society Participation and Legitimization through Transparency Initiatives in Azerbaijan Thomas Hernandez______87

Senderologist Literature: Gendered Language and Representations of Women in the Shining Path Maria Santos______101

Jim Crow’s Middle Class: An Examination of the Socioeconomic Impacts of Devolution on Colorblind Legislation Monica Smith ______113

Biographies for the authors of The Inquiry______125 editor’s note All the articles in this journal are formatted in the Chicago style, even social sciences papers that would normally use APA formatting. This was done for the sake of uniformity (to make the journal as professional looking as possible by giving it one style) and readability (to make the journal easier to read by not abruptly changing styles from article to article, particularly in regards for nonacademic readers, who constitute a significant portion of the journal’s audience). We wish to make social science professionals who may read this journal aware of this fact and why this formatting was used. Aside from normal copyediting and uniform format- ting, the content of these articles was not changed in any way.

Gerald Early Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters Faculty Director of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Program Director of the Center for the Humanities Washington University in St. Louis

THE CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES ADVISORY BOARD 2010-2011

Nancy Berg is Professor of Asian and Near Eastern Steven Meyer is Associate Professor in the Department of Languages & Literatures. English. Kenneth Botnick is Associate Professor of Graphic Design Joe Pollack is a writer. in the School of Art. Anne Posega is Head of Special Collections, Olin Library. Gene Dobbs Bradford is Executive Director of Jazz at the Qiu Xiaolong is a novelist and poet. Bistro.. Joseph Schraibmam is Professor of Spanish. Elizabeth Childs is Associate Professor and Chair of Art History, and Archaeology Henry Schvey is Professor of Drama. Mary-Jean Cowell is Associate Professor of Performing Wang Ning is Professor of English, Tsinghua University, Arts. China Phyllis Grossman is a retired financial executive. Jim Wertsch is Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts and Sciences and Associate Vice Chancellor for International Michael Kahn is an attorney, author and Adjunct Professor Affairs. of Law. Zurab Karumidze is Director of US-Caucasus Institute, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia. Ex Officio Peter Kastor is Associate Professor of History and Edward S. Macias is Provost & Exec VC for Academic American Culture Studies Program. Affairs. Chris King is Editorial Director of The St. Louis American Gary S. Wihl is Dean of Arts & Sciences. Newspaper. Olivia Lahs-Gonzales is Director of The Sheldon Art Gal- leries. iv foreword One of the most important aspects of the mission of was Dean of the College James McLeod’s idea to identify the Center for the Humanities at Washington University the program more closely with the academic traditions and is reaching out to undergraduate students. Relatively few personages of Washington University itself, a very sound humanities centers engage undergraduates, though this is idea, indeed.) The MKUHF is a two-year program, which slowly changing, most feeling that their universities provide accepts a small number of its applicants at the end of their enough services and activities for them. The centers are sophomore year. We pair the student with a mentor and largely the province of faculty and graduate students. This guide the student through a long-term research project is an understandable prejudice, if not quite, at this time, a through the structure of weekly seminars devoted to the sustainable one. Undergraduates occupy too large a portion discussion and analysis of their research. Kling Fellows are of the population and the reality of a university to ignore also provided with a summer stipend and support during them. Besides, if what humanities centers have to offer is the academic year to facilitate their research, permitting a crucial form of enrichment to the general public with its them even to travel to archives and attend conferences. colloquia and lectures, to graduate students with its read- Finally, Kling Fellows, like their peers in the Mellon Mays ing groups and faculty seminars, and to faculty with its Program, produce annually a journal of their work, Slide- fellowships, why should undergraduates as a population be show, the latest volume of which you hold in your hands. exempt from engagement? It seems almost a form of preju- (Copies of the earlier volumes may be requested from the dice, as if humanities centers should not take undergradu- Center for the Humanities at [email protected].) ates seriously because undergraduates do not have anything The seniors of the MKUHF Program produced the work serious to offer and what humanities centers have to offer is that is featured here. Betty Gibson, an Art History major, too weighty for them. This is nonsense. considers the transformation of art criticism in assessing the But how to engage undergraduates is the question: As works of Matisse: specifically, how and why the so-called the Center offers few courses and has no teaching staff, feminine “decorative” elements in his work were re-labeled one way that this Center’s advisory board thought we could “masculine”; History and Economics double major Howie engage students is through encouraging and supporting Rudnick’s paper is about the young leadership of the independent research for a select number of students who Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, their trip to majored in any of the humanities disciplines. We were in- Ghana in 1964, and their encounter with Malcolm X while terested as well in students with social science majors who, they were there; and finally Michael Dango, an English we thought, might benefit from being around humanities major, deploying both legal analysis and critical theory in students. We felt that humanities students would benefit as his essay, examines the legal meaning of being disabled well from being part of a group where they had to grapple with AIDS, the nature of family, and the Americans with with and take seriously the work of their social science Disabilities Act. peers. In this way, it was felt that the Center might be able These are independent essays, polished and meant to to contribute to the spirit of interdisciplinary exchange stand alone, extracted from the students’ Honors theses. on the campus among the students, markedly different, For undergraduates especially, this effort to produce a though, from what they encountered in the classroom. free-standing essay, meant to be read by non-specialists, Faculty did not often find undergraduate students very culled from a larger work can be daunting. But if they are helpful as research assistants but have often thought that as to consider becoming college professors and high-level professors they might be helpful in guiding undergraduates researchers, they must come to understand this exercise as in the students’ own research projects. a necessary and useful skill. Redacting, editing, revising, The Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Pro- recasting, reshaping, re-contextualizing are all writing and gram, named in honor of former WU provost and political thinking skills that college professors who publish must science professor Merle Kling, was inspired by the Mellon have in order to get the most mileage out of their research. Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, established at Professors must master many different forms of presenta- Washington University back in the early 1990s and, while tion of their work, and this is one of the goals of the Merle open to all students, meant particularly to encourage mem- Kling Honors Fellowship Program: to teach undergraduate bers of underrepresented minorities to consider pursuing students how this is done. the Ph.D. and becoming university teachers. (The nam- Make no mistake; while the students themselves are in ing of the program may have been in some small measure charge of producing this publication, it is no amateur indul- connected with the fact that I, as director of the program, gence. These essays have been vetted by their mentors, cor- hold an endowed chair named in honor of Kling, but it rected by a professional copy editor, and tested over many v months in the crucible of the seminar. There is no guaran- tee that a student’s work will be published in the journal. If the work is found to be substandard and if the student fails to meet the deadlines of the various stages of production, the work is not published. The students are tough on each other. This effort means a great deal to them, and they want very much to be taken seriously as contributors of merit to their fields. Moreover, the cost for producing this journal is about the same as it would be for a professional academic journal of the same size. We want the students themselves, the university, and the larger community to know that we at the Center take this work seriously as we take any good scholarly work by our colleagues seriously. I hope you enjoy reading this journal. If you have any comments about what you have read, we would love to hear from you.

Gerald Early Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters Faculty Director of the Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fellowship Program Director, The Center for the Humanities Washington University in St. Louis All in the Family? HIV/AIDS, Disability, and Informal Caregiving Networks Michael Dango

Abstract: The jurisprudence of protections for persons with HIV/AIDS under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has tended to rely on three harmful mythologies: that disability is or should be asexual; that sexuality is coterminous with procreation, which is the prerogative of the married, heterosexual couple; and that caregiving is exclusively the purview of the nuclear family. Disability generally and HIV/AIDS specifically, however, have reworked assumptions about sexuality and family in America, notably expanding informal caregiving networks beyond the family. To better accommodate disability in line with the expressed intent of the ADA, the law should allow for increased access to caregiving networks, move toward a model of caregiving functions independent of caregiver identities confined to particular social arrangements, and advocate rhetoric that affirms caregiving whenever and wherever it occurs.

Introduction development of judicial encounters with HIV/AIDS under o realize its own intentions in publicly ac- disability antidiscrimination legislation. I draw from these commodating a wider range of citizens and in encounters in part 2 to approach assumptions of eugeni- affirming the importance of informal caregivers, cal disability, unessential sex, and privatized, familiarized American law must re-formulate its HIV/AIDS caregiving that I argue need to be contested in the context jurisprudence. By necessity, American law in the past 25 of disability and HIV/AIDS. In part 3, I briefly suggest years has assessed the intersections of sexuality and disabil- possible state actions beyond these assumptions, particular- T ly to reflect how HIV/AIDS caregiving modifies currently ity in considering the treatment of persons with HIV/AIDS under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,1 the Americans with assumed paradigms; the state could allow for increased Disabilities Act of 1990,2 the decision of Bragdon v. Abbott3 access to caregiving networks, move toward a model of (the first and only Supreme Court case to assess ADA dis- caregiving functions independent of caregiver identities crimination litigation brought by a person with HIV), and confined to particular social arrangements, and advocate the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA).4 When rhetoric that affirms caregiving whenever and wherever it courts have relied on eugenical and heterosexist assump- occurs. Persons with HIV/AIDS and the intent of dis- tions regarding disability, sexuality, and social support ability accommodation legislation both are best served with systems, they have tended to limit the capacity of antidis- an expanded understanding of the connected social actors crimination legislation to accommodate persons with HIV/ involved in this larger caregiving picture. AIDS. Many problematic court decisions were redressed by the passage of the Amendments and subsequent federal HIV/AIDS and Disability in regulations, but these assumptions may remain uncontested American Law and capable of misinforming future decisions regarding In this part, I review the legislative and jurisdictional his- persons with HIV/AIDS in other contexts. In this article, tory of HIV/AIDS as a disability in American law. I begin I argue that disability generally and HIV/AIDS especially with the Rehabilitation Act and relevant lower court cases have reformulated a number of formerly axiomatic Ameri- addressing HIV/AIDS in that context. I then explain how can ideas about community and caregiving that should be the jurisprudence developed in these cases had expanded acknowledged by the law to better reflect the ways in which relevancy in court cases addressing the ADA. Problems persons really live their lives today. In part 1, I review the in the logic of this jurisprudence developed in the Su- Dango 1 preme Court decision of Bragdon v. Abbott and subsequent evident that early-stage infection13 of HIV is necessarily a lower court holdings. Finally, the ADA Amendments Act disability in the terms of the Act when outward symptoms redressed some but not all of these problems, yet also left may not be manifest or “substantially limiting.”14 This deter- unaddressed many of the problematic assumptions that mination has therefore fallen to the discretion of the courts. originally informed these decisions. A number of courts in the late 1980s and in the early The first substantial disability antidiscrimination legisla- 1990s affirmed AIDS as a disability protected under the tion at a federal level was the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Rehabilitation Act. Some courts considered AIDS a per enacted before the advent of HIV/AIDS in America.5 The se disability, indeed seeming to consider it the paradig- Act prohibits discrimination against a “handicapped indi- matic handicap.15 Other courts were more interested in vidual” in federal employment, federal agency programs, or how AIDS directly affected the specific lives under review, in programs and employment funded by federal dollars.6 In for instance noting in one case that a student with AIDS 1973, the Act defined such an individual as one who “has is handicapped within the terms of the Act because the a physical or mental disability which for such individual physiological disorder substantially limited his “involve- constitutes or results in a substantial handicap to employ- ment in contact sports,” which was “certain to restrict social ment” and “can reasonably be expected to benefit in terms of interaction with those of the opposite sex.”16 Under this employability from vocational rehabilitation services … .”7 individualized approach, some persons with AIDS may not As most recently amended, the Rehabilitation Act renames be considered individuals with a disability, although this “handicapped individual” an “individual with a disability” question was not raised directly under Rehabilitation Act and defines such an “individual” as a person who has at least jurisprudence,17 such that by the time the Supreme Court one of the following three: came to consider the issue in 1997, it could find no lower (A) a physical or mental impairment that substan- courts who had not identified AIDS as a disability under 18 tially limits one or more major life activities of such the Rehabilitation Act. individual; Some courts expanded the definition of AIDS as a dis- (B) a record of such an impairment; or ability to include HIV-infection per se, even in asymptom- (C) being regarded as having such an impairment.8 atic forms. This was most likely when a court considered HIV-infection as an impairment of the “hemic and lym- The Act has never defined “handicapped,” “impairment,” phatic”19 systems, because such an impairment is definition- or “major life activity,” but courts found that Equal Em- al of HIV-infection and indeed precedes the asymptomatic ployment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations stage.20 Other courts simply declined to distinguish asymp- promulgated under the Act provide guidance that is entitled tomatic from symptomatic HIV-infection, largely through to some deference.9 Before 2009, these guidelines provided recourse to the definition of disability as being “regard[ed] that “physical or mental impairment” means: as having an impairment,” therefore considering the former (1) any physiological disorder or condition, cosmet- as also a protected class within the meaning of the Rehabili- ic disfigurement, or anatomical loss affecting one or tation Act.21 more of the following body systems: neurological; Other courts declined to establish a per se rule for HIV- musculoskeletal; special sense organs; cardiovascu- infection as a disability and supported their reasoning lar; reproductive; digestive; genitourinary; hemic through an analysis based not on the impairment of the im- and lymphatic; skin; and endocrine; or mune system but on impairment of reproductive activities.22 (2) any mental or psychological disorder, such Noting that persons with HIV risk transmitting the virus as mental retardation, organic brain syndrome, to sexual partners and that pregnant women with HIV risk emotional or mental illness, and specific learning 10 transmitting the virus to a developing fetus, these courts disabilities. claimed that persons with HIV at any stage of development “Major life activities” the EEOC defined as “functions were limited in the major life activity of procreation.23 The such as caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, walk- courts did not claim that persons with asymptomatic HIV ing, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and were limited in the capability of actual sexual congress, con- 11 working.” ception, or birth, but rather that the safety risks to others As a condition that necessarily affects the immune sys- involved in such activities reasonably precluded them from tem, hence the hemic and lymphatic systems, HIV would seeking those activities. seem to be an “impairment” under the definition of the Act. This logic of substantially limited procreation also prolif- If HIV progresses to AIDS, the impairment may further erated in court determinations of HIV as a disability under affect other systems, limiting any of the functions defined the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The 12 in the Act as major life activities. However, it is less self- ADA expands antidiscrimination protections for persons 2 Dango with disabilities to non-federal contexts, including state ask whether (1) asymptomatic HIV infection is a physical and local governments, employment generally, and institu- impairment, (2) the activity Abbott cites counts as a “major tions providing public services.24 The ADA also requires life activity” under the ADA, and (3) said physical impair- a number of accommodations for persons with a disability ment “substantially limits” said activity.39 Drawing on the both in the workplace and in public institutions, especially Rehabilitation Act and ADA jurisprudence of the lower public transportation and telecommunications.25 The courts,40 as well as on the regulations and findings of nu- “person with a disability” is defined under the ADA identi- merous federal agencies,41 the Court concluded (1) HIV is a cally to the three-prong definition under the Rehabilitation physical impairment “from the moment of infection,”42 (2), Act,26 but the ADA of 1990 did not provide a partial list of Abbott’s proposed activity of procreation is indeed “major” “major life activities” or a fuller explanation of conditions because “[r]eproduction and the sexual dynamics surround- included under “impairment.” Like the Rehabilitation Act, ing it are central to the life process itself,”43 and (3) HIV it also declined to detail a list of per se disabilities, includ- infection limits procreation because of the risk in transmit- ing HIV-infection as a disability, but the congressional ting the virus to a partner or to the fetus.44 Asymptomatic record does indicate the law was intended to protect persons HIV-infection is therefore an ADA-protected disability for infected with HIV. In hearings, the Department of Justice women who intend, or did intend before seroconversion, to concluded “a person infected with [HIV] is covered under have children. the first prong of the definition of the term disability because However, the Court declined to establish a per se rule for of a substantial limitation to procreation and intimate sexual HIV-infection as a disability and therefore left open many 27 relations,” and both the Senate and the House affirmed other questions. If an individual cannot prove intent to 28 this claim. The EEOC, charged by the ADA to develop procreate and therefore does not have a “major life activity” regulations for enforcing the statue’s antidiscrimination “substantially limit[ed]” by infection, does that individual’s 29 mandate, also recognized HIV infection as a per se dis- infection still qualify as a disability? Or from another ability, indeed singling it out as the paradigmatic condition angle, are “sexual dynamics” per se major life activities, or for per se disability; noting that “[s]ome impairments may be only if they “surround” the expressed purpose of reproduc- disabling for particular individuals but not for others,” the tion? This is an especially important question given the EEOC nonetheless explains, “[o]ther impairments [...] such disproportionate HIV-infection rate among men who have 30 as HIV infection, are inherently substantially limiting.” sex with men,45 where the sexual dynamics involved have Many courts in the first five years of the ADA relied no directly causative relation with reproduction. Finally, to upon Rehabilitation Act jurisprudence and the meaning of what extent is the ostensible description of Abbott’s limita- the ADA as outlined by government agencies to find HIV tion in procreation also a prescription, that is, a claim she infection as a disability.31 All courts at this time seemed to not merely cannot but also should not procreate?46 32 consider AIDS to be self-evidently a disability, and some Given the Court’s ambiguity on the matter, these ques- 33 courts developed an asymptomatic per se rule. Because tions fell instead to lower courts in the wake of Bragdon. such a per se rule was not explicit in the ADA, however, Many courts applied Bragdon expansively, even claiming the such findings have been appealable. The case most impor- Supreme Court decision did establish something like a per tant in this respect is Abbott v. Bragdon, which upon appeals se rule.47 Other courts noted the limitations of the Bragdon reached the Supreme Court in 1998. Sidney Abbott, after decision, especially the irrelevancy of procreation as a major disclosing to her dentist Robert Bragdon she was asymp- life activity for many impaired persons, for instance infants, tomatic HIV-positive, was told she must have her cavity but nonetheless considered HIV infection as a disability filled in a hospital at added expense rather than in the for those persons either by considering other major life 34 dentist’s office. Abbott sued Bragdon for discrimination, activities48 or by relying on the “regarded as” prong49 of the citing the ADA’s prohibition on discrimination against ADA’s definition of a person with a disability.50 a person “on the basis of disability in the . . . enjoyment Drawing on the individualized, procreation-focused ap- of the . . . services . . . of any place of public accommoda- 35 proach of the Bragdon Court, however, some lower courts tion by any person who . . . operates [such] a place.” The have justified denying protection to persons with conditions District Court and the First Circuit both found Abbott identical to or even more progressed than Abbott’s. Begin- as a person with a disability protected under the ADA. 36 ning with the realization that Bragdon did not establish a On final appeal, the first question posed to the Supreme per se rule,51 these courts have tended to deny protections Court was whether Abbott’s HIV infection constitutes a for persons for whom they deem procreation is not a major disability under the ADA and therefore protects her from life activity.52 Thus, the United States District Court for discriminatory denial of access to the professional office of 37 the Northern District of Texas ruled in Gutwaks v. Ameri- a health care provider. Under the first prong definition 53 38 can Airlines, Inc. that Fabio Gutwaks, an unmarried man of a disability under the ADA, the Court proceeded to with “full-blown” AIDS,54 is not protected under ADA Dango 3 Johnson mandates because his decision not to procreate is for rea- HIV as a per se disability and in condemning by name sons other than his HIV-infection; therefore whereas “the Court cases that have narrowed the scope of the ADA64 but plaintiff in Bragdon testified that her HIV status dictated failing to mention Bragdon explicitly,65 Congress missed an her decision not to have children,” Gutwaks’s decision is a opportunity to send 55 “personal one.” The same logic has been used to deny pro- a message that went beyond the simple irrationality tections to married individuals as well; in Blanks v. South- of the reproduction standard and directly at- western, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth tacked the discriminatory view of HIV/AIDS and Circuit found that Albenjamin Blanks’s asymptomatic HIV- reproduction. […] Congress could have quashed infection does not constitute a disability because he and his some stereotypes by simply mentioning that the wife do not intend to have more children and therefore the Bragdon standard is narrow and outdated. Instead, plaintiff fails to raise “a triable issue of fact to indicate that Bragdon’s legal authority lingers, and the stigma his HIV status substantially limited his major life activity of surrounding women with HIV/AIDS and repro- 56 reproduction.” duction remains.66 The effect of these individualized inquiries, besides bur- Even greater is a stigma around nonreproduction, where dening the impaired plaintiff with a personal inquiry in the Congress’s silence regarding the Court’s irrelevant inquires face of an already stigmatized disease, has been to narrow into personal narratives and intentions to procreate is in turn protections for persons with HIV under the ADA, in line a silence over whether scripted expectations over the normal with a general judicial trend of narrowing the ADA’s scope behaviors and goals of sexuality are permitted to interfere of applicability across a range of contexts. Indeed, Bragdon with protection and equal treatment under the law.67 is the only Supreme Court case to decide on behalf of the In the wake of the ADAAA, however, some ambiguity person with disabilities, with the Court substantially nar- over HIV in the workplace has at least dissipated, although rowing the scope of required employer provisions, usually a specific description of an employer’s requirements in ac- through recourse to contesting the definition of disability, in commodation for it has yet to be clarified. Like the ADA, at least six other cases.57 To rectify these narrowing moves, the ADAAA provides necessary recourse for adapting Congress in 2008 passed the ADA Amendments Act definitions of disability beyond the static statute itself by (ADAAA)58 to make clear the provisions accorded under granting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis- the ADA of 1990 were, in fact, meant to apply widely and sion (EEOC) and the Attorney General under the Depart- powerfully. It maligns Court holdings that “have narrowed ment of Justice (DOJ) authority to issue regulations for the the broad scope of protection intended to be afforded by implementation of the statute. The EEOC has, in its 2009 the ADA, thus eliminating protection for many individu- regulations, included HIV/AIDS as a per se disability, but is als whom Congress intended to protect.”59 The ADAAA only responsible for Title I of the ADA. The DOJ, respon- maintains the statute’s earlier definitions of disability but sible for Title II and therefore the accommodations require- expands protection beyond the Court’s rulings by clarifying ments, finally issued regulations after much delay on July the language of “major life activity,” not only adding a list 23, 2010, and did include “HIV disease (whether symptom- of specific activities, but also under the category of “ma- atic or asymptomatic).”68 jor bodily functions” adding “reproductive functions” and “functions of the immune system.”60 Although the Amend- Although it may be a short time before these regulations have manifest effect on protections for persons with HIV, ments make no explicit mention of HIV/AIDS, they there- largely because courts have found the Amendments do not fore provide a way of covering persons with HIV apart from retroactively apply to cases antedating their passing,69 it procreative prescriptions, because an impairment of the would seem not implausibly optimistic to believe persons immune system is definitional to the disease; furthermore, 70 with HIV will indeed become, as a class, better protected. the ADAAA’s added language that impairments which are However useful the adoption of a per se rule may be for “episodic or in remission”61 constitute disabilities if they 62 HIV and disability jurisprudence, however, this blanket cor- “would substantially limit a major life activity when active” rection may also have the disadvantageous effect of masking would seem to cover asymptomatic HIV as well. Facially, the underlying ideologies that informed earlier problematic the Amendments seem positioned precisely to counteract decisions, because the Amendments call on courts to redress the legacy of confused court interpretations of HIV under surface effects only, not those underlying ideologies. It is the ADA, finding on behalf of the HIV-positive. therefore necessary to examine the assumptions on which Still, questions unanswered or at least not answered spe- courts relied in these earlier decisions to anticipate how they cifically by the ADAAA63 raise potential problems as courts may affect judgment on similar surface issues not directly move forward in interpreting HIV under the new statute, affected by the Amendments. It is toward this end that I especially when it is asymptomatic. In failing to include direct the following parts of this article. 4 Dango Problematic Assumptions in HIV/AIDS The ADA operates with an understanding of the social Disability Jurisprudence model of disability, not only by defining disability distinct from impairment per se, but also in its specific provisions Although the ADAAA resolves the central statutory and protections. Both Title I, which prohibits employ- question courts were forced to confront in the wake of ment discrimination “against a qualified individual with a Bragdon, it does not directly question or remedy the working disability because of the disability,”71 and Title II, which hypotheses and logic that led to the problems of the Bragdon mandates “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by decision in the first place. Indeed, precisely because the reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in Amendments provide a symptomatic response by designat- or be denied the benefits of services, programs, or activi- ing HIV infection per se a disability, they do not provide ties of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by a systemic reformulation. Bragdon and the Amendments any such entity,”72 explicitly counter unfounded negative may even share problematic illations. For this reason, it is views of impairment in the commercial and public spheres. important to scrutinize the ideological assumptions un- Similarly, by requiring employers and public entities to derneath Bragdon, even if the Court would not need them “mak[e] reasonable accommodations to the known physi- if Bragdon were brought today rather than in 1997. These cal or mental limitations”73 of a person with disabilities, assumptions could still inform cases related to HIV/AIDS the ADA also moves the “problem” of disability away from and disability in other contexts. Furthermore, the Amend- impairment and toward inaccessibility. Written into the ments do not answer all the questions raised by Bragdon, statute is a requirement that a vast number of entities and and in this respect they do not provide a comprehensive social actors74 annul the significance of impairment, not only program for accommodating HIV/AIDS as a disability in by de-mythologizing it, but also by actively adapting. For American law. once, the mandate is not merely for persons with disabilities Before considering what positive propositions the state to adapt to an inhospitable society, but also for society to could adopt to this end, we must first more completely detail adapt to them. the questions and assumptions raised and deployed by Brag- The social model of disability does have limitations. For don and left unanswered or unchallenged by the ADAAA. one, it does not account for the real and individual emo- In this part, I begin with a brief consideration of how the tional effects of impairment, not least because in precisely ADA did challenge one very important assumption about dis- the moment it demands that society accommodate dis- ability generally by rejecting the medical model of disability. ability, it erases the person with disabilities as a subject of I then consider two assumptions the Court did not challenge critical thought.75 For another, the social model elides the in Bragdon, first that disability is asexual and concomitantly minoritizing/universalizing question of disability, 76 that is, that sexuality is not per se substantial; and second that dis- whether disability is something associated with a minority ability and caregiving are primarily the purview of the home, population that must be protected, or whether disability read as coterminous with the nuclear family. is something associated with everyone, inasmuch as all The ADA and Socialized Disability persons have different capabilities, and through age or acci- dent, all capabilities may weaken over the course of persons’ One reason disability activists claimed the ADA as a lives.77 In response to the simultaneous danger of a medical victory is because it radically re-defines disability in mov- model and the limitations of a social model, most dis- ing from a medical to a social model. The medical model ability scholars or activists assume a more “middle-ground of disability, both traditional and dominant in its ideology, position.”78 In Elizabeth Emens’s words, this position holds that disability results from a person’s intrinsic physi- “recognizes that there can be pain or difficulty associated cal or mental impairment, where that person’s best interests with disability, and that sometimes disability does require are therefore served through “curing” or managing the more resources or more support than other states of being, impairment. Although the reality of impairments cannot but still emphasizes that much of what makes disability and should not be ignored, disability activists and theorists disabling is the way the world is currently constructed.”79 have criticized the medical model’s disempowerment of Disability is never purely the effect of a person, although persons with disabilities, portraying those persons as always that person cannot be overlooked; rather, it is the effect of already victimized, to be pitied rather than accomodated. an entire system of effects that include but do not necessar- The social model of disability, on the other hand, contends ily emanate from a person’s feeling of difficulty. Without that disability is not a result of an individual’s impairment, necessarily adopting a purely social model, the benefit of but of pervasive societal barriers; that is, a person’s impair- adopting at least a socialized view of disability is to consider ment does not become a disability unless a social consensus the person with disabilities as never alone with her dis- stigmatizes and fails to accommodate it. What needs to be ability; the relation is always more complex and implicates a “treated,” then, are social attitudes and accessibility. Dango 5 Johnson variety of social actors. order to improve the gene pool for the development of a fit 83 The logic of a socialized model of disability has been society. Eugenic thought had come to the United States disrupted by the legal necessity of Courts to interpret and by at least 1907, when Indiana passed the first statute that 84 constitute the protected class of disability, thereby policing allowed for the sterilization of undesirable persons. Legal access to that class by reasserting an intensely individual- regulations continued to mature in the following decade, ized, impairment-centered analysis.80 Although the ADA notoriously culminating in Virginia’s 1924 statute authoriz- 85 encourages a social vision of accommodating disability, ing the compulsory sterilization of “mental defectives.” 86 its definition of disability still necessitates an analysis of The Supreme Court addressed the issue in Buck v. Bell, medical components. As the review of cases in Part I which posed the substantive issue of whether tying the Fal- begins to suggest, however, courts have not simply fallen lopian tubes of the “feeble-minded white woman” Carrie back on a medical model to assess disability. Rather, courts Buck under the Virginia statute violates the Fourteenth 87 continue to socialize disability by silently approaching it Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses. with a number of assumptions regarding what persons with The Court affirmed it did not, claiming that “[t]hree genera- disability mean in the context of others. Assumptions are tions of imbeciles are enough” and “[i]t is better for all the not per se problematic, but at least two related to the role of world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring sexuality in relation to disability are particularly misguided for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society in the context of HIV/AIDS. In the next two sections, I can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing 88 contrast two of these assumptions with the reality of lived their kind.” Misguided by a model where social strife is lives with HIV/AIDS and of caregiving networks that have genetic and social values are hereditary, the Court denied risen in response to them. First, I consider the descriptive the reproductive rights of the person with mental disabilities as well as prescriptive belief that disability is asexual, which and affirmed that denial as a social good. I believe also relies on a fallacious conflation of sexuality More sophisticated understandings of genetics and hered- with procreation that renders sexuality per se unessential. ity, combined with the realization of what eugenics taken to Second, I bring into focus and then question the presump- its conclusion means under the genocidal regime of Na- tion of disability as exclusively the purview of the private zism, have censored overtly eugenical discourse in the late home, with caregiving networks seen as coterminous with twentieth century.89 However, the search for the “gay gene” biological kinship networks. In order to best reflect and (among other things) does suggest that the social conscious- accommodate the reality of HIV/AIDS, I argue in the fol- ness has not been completely evacuated of genetic reasoning lowing part that we must complicate, if not variously reject, with prescriptive ends.90 Eugenic thinking is especially pos- these assumptions. sible in the context of HIV/AIDS because while it is gener- Eugenic Disability and Unessential Sex ally not accepted that a person with “undesirable” politics, say, might pass on that trait to offspring, it is accepted that As I discussed in Part 1, the Bragdon Court concluded a pregnant woman with HIV might pass on that virus to a that a woman with asymptomatic HIV was “substantially fetus. That is, the perceived social bad and the moment of limited” in her ability to reproduce, because of the risk of birth are simultaneous. transmitting the virus to currently uninfected sexual part- ners or to any fetus that may develop.81 Medical authority Few people today would likely call for the forced steriliza- provides evidence for risks detailed by the Court, and I do tion of persons with HIV/AIDS, but this does not remove not dispute we can accept their descriptions in these respects the stigma attached to HIV-positive pregnant women. as fact. However, it is not self-evident that the conclusion Arguments very similar to ones for sterilization in the that these risks limit Bragdon’s reproductive abilities is only earlier twentieth century might also be used to support this descriptive. It may also be prescriptive. That is, the osten- belief today, for instance claiming HIV-positive parents who give birth to an HIV-positive child place an undue burden sible claim Bragdon cannot procreate might be, concur- 91 rently, a claim she should not.82 on society to provide assistance. These economic concerns displace the moral judgment from public circulation, but the If the court is discouraging Bragdon’s procreative efforts, normative assessment persists. Many studies indicate that it does so in line with a long eugenic tradition of regulating most Americans believe what the Court assumed: persons disability, a tradition at least discursively exacerbated rather with HIV/AIDS or with disability generally should not than overruled by the stigma attached to the sexualized as- procreate.92 Some scholars believe Congress also, in sin- sociations of HIV/AIDS. Led by combined fears of cultural gling out Court cases that have narrowed the scope of the degeneration and the developing (but not yet developed) sci- ADA while failing to explicitly mention Bragdon, missed an ence of genetics and heredity, the pseudoscience of eugen- opportunity in the language of the ADAAA to challenge ics came to popular prominence in late nineteenth-century these stigmatizing beliefs.93 Europe, advocating for the social control of reproduction in 6 Dango In proscribing procreation, the Court also asexualizes to the ability to perform the ‘essential functions of the job the person with HIV because its imagination is limited by already required.’”102 The decisions of Bragdon, Gutwaks, a seeming inability to distinguish procreation from sexual- and Blanks testify to this “moral qualification,” read as an ity per se. As I discussed in the previous part, the Bragdon orientation of bodies toward heterosexual reproduction.103 Court did not approach the question of whether sexuality Disability becomes a mechanism whereby heterosexuality is regardless of motive is a major life activity.94 It did not raise normalized, not only for persons with disabilities, but also the question of whether pleasure, for instance, is essential in for the workplaces and institutions they seek to access. life. The ADAAA, too, avoids this consideration by leaving More broadly operating here is a sustained separation it to federal agencies to address HIV directly and by adding of the sphere of disability from the sphere of sexuality, in to the list of major life activities not the functions of the line with a tradition, related to eugenics, of asexualizing sexual organs generally, but rather and more specifically “[r]e disability. In recent years, disability activists have fore- productive functions.” The Amendments therefore incorpo- grounded and contested the view of disability as asexual,104 rate genitalia, but only if they are in reproductive service. especially confronting stereotypes that infantilize disability Indeed, the vast expansion of clearly articulated ma- in a prepubertal mythology.105 The association of disability jor life activities has the effect of making the absence of with infantilization is especially prevalent in the law, as I unmentioned activities especially apparent, even though will discuss in the next section. Whatever the context in the Amendments make clear such a list is not exhaustive.95 which it appears, the assumed asexuality of disability either Much as the absence of a word from a dictionary renders denies the relevancy of sexuality for humanity, or else denies that word as non-word, so, too, does a new detailing of “ma- humanity to the person with disabilities by assuming her jor bodily functions” that excludes sexual functions render lack of sexuality. In the context of HIV/AIDS, where the those functions as non-major. A similar effect is at play route of infection is often assumed to be sexual, the osten- when the Amendments include the sensations of “seeing” sible description, as we have seen, turns into a prescription: and “hearing” but does not include touch.96 if you were not asexual before, you should be now.106 This is also an effect we can notice already in the ADA Many scholars have suggested sexuality has been recently of 1990, whose formally radical inclusion of vastly different affirmed, regardless of context, because of the Supreme conditions makes formal exclusions particularly striking. Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas107 striking down laws Social expectations of disability and citizenship arise not incriminating consensual homosexual sodomy.108 The deci- only in court interpretations of the ADA, but also in the sion in Lawrence, however, did not approach the question of statute itself. The Act excludes “[c]ertain conditions” per a fundamental “right to sex” per se, but rather the validity of se from the definition of disability, among them “gender a statute incriminating “two persons of the same sex to en- identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments” gage in certain intimate sexual conduct.”109 Justice Kennedy and “other sexual behavior disorders.”97 We might view in his majority opinion expands on this “intimate” dimen- these exclusions optimistically, in line with the ADA’s sion by finding that “[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression similar exclusion of homosexuality and bisexuality following in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can their declassification as mental disorders by the American be but one element in a personal bond that is more endur- Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1973;98 but because the ing.”110 The Court therefore makes a move from acts to re- APA does classify some gender identity and sexual behavior lationships. In the words of Laura Rosenbury and Jennifer disorders,99 their categorical rejection here would seem to be Rothman, the Court thereby conscripts sex “in the service a reification of moralism whereby sexual variance, especially of intimacy,” devaluing sex per se while elevating certain transsexualism, is excluded from workplaces and social modes of social relations.111 When the Court proceeds to institutions. “Because the ADA is the most extensive civil overrule Bowers v. Hardwick, it similarly rebukes the Bowers rights law to address bodily norms,” Adrienne L. Hiegel Court for making the question there “simply the right to en- confirms, “the exclusion of sex- and gender-related condi- gage in certain sexual conduct,” which “demeans the claim tions has tremendous expressive importance”100; “[r]ather the individual put forward, just as it would demean a mar- than changing the ethical significance of all disabilities, ried couple were it said that marriage is just about the right the Act carves out a new class of untouchables defined by to have sexual intercourse.”112 The analogy to marriage here sexuality and sex behaviors.”101 Writing before the Bragdon is especially telling, co-opting sodomy acts under a frame- decision, Hiegel continues, “By refusing to protect those work of heteronormative intimacy. At precisely the moment with sexual behavior and gender identity disorders against the Court seems to validate the nonnormative sexual act, it discrimination based on their disabilities, the Act raises the normalizes it by falling back on a model of stabilized, mari- specter of a ‘moral qualification’ for employment, the pos- tal relations that affirm a tradition of normative homes. sibility of imposing a standard of qualification in addition As Lawrence begins to suggest, the state is generally Dango 7 hesitant to recognize nonnormative sexuality unless it can connected by an ambiguously gendered child, and on the channel it into normalized relations. The family therefore right, the usual symbol for a wheelchair user. A vertical bar arises as the institution to manage nonnormative persons, separates the man-child-woman entity and the wheelchair largely to erase their nonnormativity or else to put it to user. Again, subsuming wheelchair use under the family newly productive use. Also constituted as nonnormative, has the practical and efficient effects of making the restroom the person with HIV/AIDS regardless of sexuality has available for a variety of uses that may require more physi- similarly important relations to the normative family. I turn cal space or privacy than can be afforded by the “Men’s” to the contradictions and the problems of these relations in and “Women’s” restrooms. Again, the symbolic force is the following section. peculiar. On the one hand, disability is made other to male Dependent Disability and Caregiving Families and to female, now by being co-opted by the family where the wheelchair user shares an ungendered existence with the In the previous section, I claimed that eugenic beliefs child; this also aligns that user with a position of dependen- and assumptions of disability as asexual place the person cy. On the other hand, the vertical bar definitively separates with disabilities and especially the person with HIV/AIDS disability from the (heterosexual and ostensibly nuclear) outside normative sexuality, read as coterminous with family, suggesting disability has no place in that entity, procreation. In this section, I explain what this means in normatively imagined. In these ways, the signage suggests the popular imagination for persons with disability in the both that disability affirms the role of the family and that context of the family, beginning in the first subsection with the family denies access to disability. As I will now suggest, a brief introduction to the issues at stake, then moving in this problematic and nonsingular relation between disabil- the second subsection to a consideration of how the Bragdon ity and family is particularly influential in the decision of decision relies on historical developments of disability inside Bragdon. the family home. Finally, I explore in the third subsection why this is problematic in the context of HIV/AIDS, which Disability in the Traditional Home. In the previous part, I claimed the Court description of Bragdon’s limitation has, along with disability generally, re-structured the family 116 as traditionally conceived. on procreation is also prescriptive. Here, I claim that the focus on procreation at all as a “major life activity” is Introduction. Before turning to the legal issues at another prescriptive, rather than only descriptive, move. stake, I would like to begin with a brief visual analysis that In basing their determination on procreation proper rather I believe captures the social discourses I will detail in the than on sexuality per se, the Court presupposes and also remainder of this section. Public institutions frequently predetermines the nuclear family as the destiny of normative provide three types of restrooms—for men, for women, and life narratives, with childrearing implicitly claimed as an for wheelchair users—and typically indicate these differ- activity all women necessarily want. This is predetermina- ent designs with three correlating symbols, apparently of a tive in that the assumption we all want to end up in norma- male body, a female body in a dress, and a body sitting on tive parental roles may also be a mandate we direct our lives a wheelchair. These symbols do not, of course, refer to dif- accordingly. ferent anatomies of urinary or excretory organs (the female Actually, many Americans are born into nuclear families, symbol could very well have a male body, but its symbolic 117 force derives from the dress, thereby differentiating sex at and many go on to create nuclear families. The Court the type of clothes worn or, since it is not apparent the male might not be necessarily wrong in limiting their imagina- symbol wears anything, the presence of clothes), and they tion to these instances. The prevalence of these lifestyles does not necessarily say anything about their goodness, are meant to communicate something about the design 118 of the rooms, not necessarily about the persons who enter however, nor does it tell us who is living them and what them. This differentiation serves obvious practical goals sorts of privilege might be prerequisite to them. Many related to, among other things, bodily safety. Practical studies suggest nuclear family arrangements may not be vi- intentions aside, however, many disability activists have able for disadvantaged social groups and are not the primary organizational unit for kinship in working-class urban suggested that, for the wheelchair user, the symbolic force 119 of this tripartite differentiation might be received as a de- settings. gendering, indeed placing the wheelchair user physically Singularly assumed models of the family are particularly and metaphorically outside the entire system of gender.113 problematic in the context of disability and especially with This relates to the asexualization of disability discussed in a consideration of HIV/AIDS. Disability has always had the previous section.114 a destabilizing relation to the American family because it More recently, institutions that offer a third restroom disrupts concepts otherwise taken for granted, most notably have labeled it a “Family Restroom,”115 and the signage for the binaries autonomous/dependent, private/public, and these rooms includes, on the left, a male and female body marketplace/home. These binaries were especially dis- 8 Dango rupted, as I indicated at the beginning of this part, with aggressive medical innovations, erasing their presence from a transition from a more medical to a more social model the household and muffling their voices in family stories.”130 of disability. Under a medical model, where disability is The legacy of institutions is but one example of the reality intrinsic to the individual, assistance in adapting to a society that disability affects and requires actors beyond the family, not expected to change was typically expected from an in- where to assume caregiving systems as synonymous with dividual’s immediate caretaking network, coterminous with family systems is at best incorrect and often harmful. 120 the family. Within an accepted dichotomous ideology of Indeed, disability within the family has often neces- private and public, where the person with disabilities is as- sitated re-imagining kinship outside the family, because it sumed to have no place in the public and where the private involves actors and identifications beyond the family. This 121 is understood, in modern history, as the nuclear family, is especially true when the resources of the family are not responsibility for the person with disabilities—understood, fully adequate for the care of the person with a disability. again, as always already victimized and passive—fell to A hallmark of much productive feminist theory in the past 122 the domestic family. The need of caring for the disabled decade has claimed along these lines that the self-contained 123 also served to heighten the value of selfless motherhood. and self-sufficient family is a problematic fantasy. Martha Rosemary Garland Thomas notes a pattern beginning in Fineman critiques the larger “autonomy myth” in American nineteenth-century sentimental novels that introduces a culture that privileges a notion of individuals as preferably “compensation model, in which disability is interpreted as independent, a myth that dates back to the founding fathers’ a lack that must be compensated for by […] the ‘benevolent notion of democratic independence from monarchy and that maternalism’ of […] middle-class women,” hence although maintains “cultural and political practices that stigmatize persons with disabilities “invoke a rhetoric of sympathy to and punish those among us labeled dependent.”131 But as achieve sociopolitical reform, they also define and legitimize Fineman points out, “dependency is a natural part of the the normalized, gendered role of the maternal benefac- human condition and is developmental in nature,”132 where tress that these novels promote for women of the emerging “developmental dependency should at least be regarded 124 middle class.” “Casting these characters as endangered as both universal and ‘inevitable,’ and for these reasons, children and grandmothers demands intercession in the certainly not deserving of generalized stigma.”133 To ignore 125 public realm,” therefore amidst competing demands be- our own dependencies is only to overlook those who provide tween the commercial public and what has been called else- assistance or care for us on account of them. By contrast, 126 where the “cult of true womanhood” that demanded the Fineman calls for us to acknowledge all social actors who woman monitor the home, “disabled figures […] legitimated fulfill caregiving duties; she claims that “caretaking work the middle-class woman’s move out of the sequestered home creates a collective or social debt and that each and every 127 while remaining within the maternal role.” Disability member of society is obligated by this debt.”134 To repay thereby proliferates sites of maternity, where maternity is this debt, we must first acknowledge that the caregiving understood as synonymous with caring. This overlaps with function does not necessarily follow “any dictates as to fam- the infantalization of persons with disabilities, where to be ily form,”135 because in a model of “universal and ‘inevita- disabled is to be always in need and therefore always a child ble’” dependency, caretaking is radically invoked across the dependent on parental, read maternal, care; it also overlaps public/private divide. Rapp and Ginsburg claim that care- with the asexualization of disability, where the asexuali- giving for a disabled infant, for instance, “requires different zation of children is seen as a prerequisite for caregiving, and expanded resources than can be provided by most kin which often requires naked bodies and intimate relations, to groups without additional forms of support. The complexi- operate purely. ties of mobilizing the necessary medical, therapeutic, and At the same time that the medicalization of disability social support reveal the limits of kinship within a gendered privatized it preferably out of social view128 and into the nuclear family structure.”136 Similarly, in the past century, family, it also institutionalized it as an alternative when the “[t]he proliferation of publicly circulating representations family could not accommodate the person with disabilities of disability as a form of diversity we all eventually share— on its own. The institutionalization of disability was at its through our own bodies or attachments to others—offers height in nineteenth-century America, when “asylums and potential sites of identification and even kinship beyond the almshouses […] flourished” and “provided custodial segre- biological family.”137 129 gation as limited aid for disabled people.” Rayna Rapp Thinking “beyond the biological family” is especially and Faye Ginsburg note the continuation into the twentieth important in the context of HIV/AIDS, to which I turn in century: “In the 1950s and 1960s, for example, many mid- the following subsection. dle-class parents were commonly advised to institutionalize HIV/AIDS Beyond the Family. The legacy of HIV/AIDS ‘non-normal’ children whose survival rate was rising due to has been to re-materialize the ways in which a nuclear Dango 9 family not only cannot, but also will not, assume caregiving before infection, this separation may have already occurred. responsibilities. Across the world, the high mortality rate Even when persons with HIV/AIDS are not separated from of AIDS, combined with the particular economic interven- their families, their support systems very likely include ac- tions and structural changes needed to treat it, has impli- tors beyond the family, especially because to mobilize the cated a wide range of informal caregivers. These caregivers financial and emotional resources to care for HIV/AIDS may have been analogous to primary healthcare providers in may require those actors.145 the years before there was professional healthcare to provide This implies a radically different image of informal for AIDS patients, but advancements in medicine that caregiving in the American context of HIV/AIDS, and prolong patient life still rely on informal caregivers, not only “the informal care system that has developed around AIDS for the emotional support desirable for a person with HIV/ is historically distinctive.”146 It is not necessarily that that AIDS, but also to effectively mediate the caregiving process system has displaced the family model, but it has re-worked for that person. In an American context, studies show that the role-call. Informal caregivers for persons with HIV/ the presence of informal caregivers accommodates more AIDS are likely to be younger than informal caregivers of beneficial doctor-patient communication and increases the the past; they are more likely to be unrelated to the person likelihood of patients correctly and regularly taking pre- rather than biological kin; and they are more likely to be 138 scribed medications. male than female.147 These caregivers are less likely to be In studies of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, informal motivated by biological obligation or familial responsibility; caregiving has required thinking in terms of more dispersed they are more likely to be motivated by romantic affiliation kinship. In families where parents and children both have and, especially in the context of gay caregivers, also “a sense HIV, traditional paradigms of inter-generational caregiv- of mission on behalf of a community with which they iden- ing are less tenable.139 Extended family and community tify.”148 Thus, while they “bear a close functional resem- support in this context become vital.140 Scholars disagree blance to family caregivers, they nonetheless represent dif- over whether extended families have adapted to resiliently ferent institutional contexts. While AIDS has coalesced a confront the challenges of AIDS or whether those networks community of unrelated individuals and created a powerful have collapsed under the burden of AIDS, and there seems set of non-institutionalized social relationships, kinship ties to be a continuum of family survival across different con- remain highly institutionalized with well-established norms texts.141 Fundamentally, however, the infection of multiple and expectations.”149 Judith Butler cites “the ‘buddy’ system persons within a family and the reliance on diverse resources set up by Gay Men’s Health Crisis and other AIDS service outside the family have had the effect of intensifying focus organizations to fulfill the social and medical support needs on the family unit as a mechanism of care. Thus, the Joint of its patients” as an example of “the convergence of queer Learning Initiative of Children and AIDS (JLICA) in their and kinship concerns,” where kinship is not an asexualized recommendations for what needs to be done to respond to caretaking but is instead re-imagined “beyond patrilineality, HIV/AIDS on a “global, regional, national and local level compulsory heterosexuality, and the symbolic overdetermi- is,” among, other things, to “[i]mplement family centered nation of biology.”150 The formation of alternative caregiv- services integrating health, education and social support.”142 ing networks in the wake of HIV/AIDS rejects normative Recognizing the formal healthcare system as inadequate family constructs wherein the caregiver/care-receiver roles for all the necessary caregiving work, especially emotional, map neatly onto the parent/child positions. implicated by HIV/AIDS, it becomes necessary to support Tim Dean takes the radical analysis of kinship further by informal caregivers as well, where in many countries, these suggesting the models of kinship employed in some HIV/ are family members. AIDS communities are not only lived realities, but are also While in some other countries, especially in sub-Saharan inscribed on the unconscious. In Unlimited Intimacy, Dean Africa, HIV/AIDS has therefore re-affirmed the impor- reflects on the gay male subculture of “barebacking” where tance of family, in America, where the majority of persons unprotected sexual practices and serostatus ambivalence are with HIV/AIDS are men who have had sex with men,143 the the norm and where, for some, “HIV has been transvalued relation to family is different. The stigma attached to HIV/ from a bad into a good object, something to be incorporated AIDS infection, especially before the medical community inside one’s body rather than kept outside.”151 While neither had learned more about the virus and developed more effec- praising nor condemning these ideologies, Dean notes that tive treatment options for living with the syndrome, has had “[g]ay men have discovered that one of the things they can the occasional effect of separating persons with HIV/AIDS do with HIV is use it to create solidarity and form com- from their biological families.144 When persons also belong munities” and “HIV transmission has the potential to create to other stigmatized populations, such as gay men and social bonds that are both symbolic and material; member- intravenous drug users, and have disclosed those affiliations ship is etched into the body like a tattoo.”152 Insomuch 10 Dango as the virus circulates within a community, it provides a in one larger category of caregiving networks. Thus, any commodity exchange that can create kinships, but “beyond proposition to accommodate the person with HIV/AIDS dyadic relations,”153 with “kinship networks [that] are not in a caregiving context accommodates caregiving networks, easily recognizable as such because they do not involve which may include family members. While theorizing how children (except at the level of fantasy) and they are not to comprehensively accommodate caregiving networks is be- institutionalized.”154 Conceptualizing “relatedness in terms yond the scope of this article, I here propose three tentative less of marriage or family than of gangs or tribes,”155 this propositions toward that end: increasing access to caregiving form of kinship is “outside the law,”156 since law only makes networks, moving toward a model of caregiving functions intelligible, precisely, marriage or family. rather than caregiver identities, and altering state expression Dean’s reflections on barebacking are illuminating, but to validate caregiving whenever and wherever it occurs. his conclusions might be resisted on a number of grounds. Increase Access to Caregiving Networks. For one, the eroticization of disease raises questions of HIV/AIDS has impelled creative modes of thinking agency and treatment, with a romanticization of HIV that 157 about social relations, opening up new means of thinking renders life unsexy and HIV treatment undesirable. about community, partnership, and empathy. This creativ- For another, Dean’s reliance on psychoanalytic concepts ity is precisely what Elizabeth Emens believes to be one obscures the role of, for instance, the very real and lived 158 value of accommodating disability generally. Emens notes pleasure in orienting persons away from condom use. that accommodations for disability in the workplace provide Nonetheless, what is useful in Dean’s analysis is an elucida- underappreciated but salient third-party benefits, because tion of the ways in which HIV/AIDS has forced a re-imag- 159 accommodations ostensibly intended for a person with a ination of the family in an American context. It seems disability generally might be useful or beneficial for persons to me that what Dean recognizes as an ethics of a specific without disability.161 This is especially true when disability barebacking subculture is actually what is at stake in a larger necessitates innovation, and “[d]isabiltiy accommodations and necessary reconceptualization of caregiving in the wake can lead not only to innovative technology, but also to of HIV/AIDS in American culture, that is, “caregiving innovative processes.”162 Because disability requires us to without children.” This is not to say there are no children think differently about social spheres, it opens up possibili- with HIV/AIDS, but rather to say that the caregiving ties for innovation that benefit all. That is, when disability networks around HIV/AIDS do not assume a parent/child questions what we usually take for granted, it frees us to context and that when children are involved, there may still reformulate the status quo. be at stake caregivers who are not parents, carrying a stigma Of course, innovations are only useful if people can access associated with sexualized adults.160 them. Emens reminds us that under the ADA, “integrating It is particularly startling, then, that the Bragdon Court people with disabilities also means integrating accommoda- relies upon a logic of the mother-father-child nuclear family tions.”163 In the context of HIV/AIDS, informal caregiv- in order to understand, define, and accommodate a disease ing networks are only useful if communities can continue that has occasionally split family arrangements, often has to form them and if individuals can continue to join them. restructured them in communal models not necessarily pop- Here we can derive theoretical guidance from two statutory ulated by biological relations, and therefore has re-imagined interventions made in other contexts, “visitability” legisla- what kinship even means. To more properly understand and tion and propositions from a number of jurisdictions in the accommodate persons with HIV/AIDS, we need to move past decade, and the National Family Caregiver Support beyond the assumptions outlined in this part that disability Program (NFCSP) established in 2000 under the Older is or should be asexual, that sexuality is only procreation, Americans Act.164 and that informal caregiving is a function of the family. In “Visitability” refers to efforts making private residences the next part, I spell out three propositions to begin this accessible for persons who have difficulty with stairs, for movement beyond. instance persons who use wheelchairs. A visitable home Accommodation Propositions from the meets three basic requirements: one zero-step entrance, doors with thirty-two inches of clear passage space, and HIV/AIDS Perspective one bathroom on the main floor accessible by wheelchair.165 The social networks and caregiving functions invoked by Many jurisdictions have adopted legislation that requires HIV/AIDS in America call on us to conceptualize beyond new homes be designed to be visitable.166 The Inclusive the family. I want to stress from the beginning this call is Home Design Act, if passed by Congress, would also have not to abandon or reject the family but rather to acknowl- visitability requirements for single-family homes to be edge the family organization in parallel with other social constructed with federal financial assistance.167 Legislation organizations and to understand all these organizations has furthermore encouraged retrofitting already constructed Dango 11 homes to be visitable. In Virginia, a tax credit up to $500 is society preserving, and therefore productive, work,” Fine- available for persons who make their private homes visitable. man argues, “the political and policy questions should focus All these state interventions acknowledge the importance on an optimal reallocation of responsibility for dependency of, in Emens’s words, “making intimate spaces more acces- across societal institutions.”174 I now want to consider what sible.”168 this might look like in the context of HIV/AIDS, first by Here, accessibility refers to eliminating real and physical raising the possibility of acknowledging the caregiver posi- barriers. However, I believe visitability offers insight, in tion independent of the home, and second by arguing for principle, for informal caregiving. By publicly acknowledg- the support of the caregiving function itself. ing the importance of informal caregiving and by affirming Drawing upon the work of Fineman, Laura Rosenbury rather than challenging caregiving beyond the home, the notes that the law especially omits mention of the various state makes caregiving more accessible. In the context of kinds of caregiving work performed by those who self-iden- HIV/AIDS, making caregiving more accessible also necessi- tify as “friends.”175 By maintaining a divide between the tates confronting the stigma attached to persons with HIV/ domestic relations of the home and the friendships seen as AIDS and their caregivers, and the state could encourage beyond the home, the state devalues friendships and hege- opening up and affirming discussions within communities monically elevates the status of marriage.176 In addition, implicated by HIV/AIDS. The state can also increase access [b]y privileging marital and domestic care over the to informal caregiving networks, not only by supporting care provided by friends, family law, too, continues caregiving directly as I consider in the following section, but to play a role in the maintenance of gender inequal- also by accommodating the circulation of knowledge around ity. Bringing friendship into the scope of family networks. Much the way the Department of Health and law could disrupt this pattern, potentially […] Human Services maintains a searchable database of elder leading to more freedom than that derived from 169 care community services nationwide, it could also learn friendship’s placement outside of the law.177 about and provide easily accessible information about com- Recognizing that the home is not the entirety of caregiv- munity services available for HIV/AIDS caregiving. ing and social relations resists the narrative that one’s des- In the context of care for the elderly, the expansion of tiny is marriage and also recognizes the real work women do knowledge has been one explicit goal of the NFCSP, which that may be invisible and therefore undervalued under the provides states and territories funding for services to support current legal framework. Rosenbury questions the terms on 170 persons who care for aging loved ones. These services, as which some citizens’ work is valued over others, which often outlined in the authorizing legislation, include the providing renders a woman’s labor as selfless and hence as unnecessary 171 of “information to caregivers about available services” and to recognize. Inasmuch as caregiving work involved with 172 “assistance to caregivers in gaining access to the services.” HIV-positive persons also relies heavily, often exclusively, In many ways, this provides a formal mechanism for ac- on non-formalized networks apart from the legally codified knowledging and referring to a number of largely informal family, the law’s exclusion of “friendship” as a meaningful or community groups. This coordination of services has also actionable category also multiplies barriers to equality and proven highly effective. According to national survey data accessibility. from the Administration of Aging, “77 percent of caregiv- It is possible to theorize what the expanded recognition ers of program clients report that services definitely enabled of “friends” might look like in the healthcare context. To them to provide care longer than otherwise would have begin, many policies or benefits currently available only to been possible,” and “89 percent of caregivers reported that 173 caregivers biologically related to patients might be expanded services helped them to be a better caregiver.” to anyone under a contractual obligation that recognizes Positioned outside or above the informal caregiving nonbiological caregivers. The Family and Medical Leave networks working in parallel, the state has the capacity to Act (FMLA), for instance, currently entitles employees of encourage conversation among them. It can affirm informal covered employers to take up to 12 months of unpaid, job- caregiving networks and increase access to them. It can also protected leave in order to, among other things, “care for the directly support the caregiving function itself, as I discuss in employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health the following section. condition.”178 The state could go further in recognizing the Move Toward a Model of Caregiving Functions role of care outside the family by protecting persons who are As I discussed in the previous part, Martha Fineman calls the primary caregivers for “friends” with a serious health on us to recognize caregiving work across social institu- condition as well. tions, including but not necessarily centering on the family. More radically, the law could also consider the HIV/ Fineman claims we owe a social debt to caregivers, and we AIDS patient not only as an isolated individual, but also should support them wherever they are. “If caretaking is as a social entity. A patient could formally identify in- 12 Dango formal caregivers as part of her treatment program. This of support training, which it already does for elder care in turn would encourage or possibly require healthcare under the NFCSP. What becomes crucial in this analysis providers to communicate not only with the patient, but is less identifying the caregiver, and more making it pos- also with identified caregivers, who would be allowed but sible for anyone to become a caregiver without substantial also formally obliged to be present at appointments with burden. The state does not necessarily have to formally the provider. This might expand the healthcare picture to categorize and manage informal caregiving, but it should include the support networks in which a patient is involved. increase the capacity of persons to exercise the caregiving Such a provision would also apply equally to familial as well function.181 as nonfamilial networks. With family networks it might Alter State Expression merely codify what is already assumed, for instance if a My previous two propositions have entailed economic or cared-for child has biological parents as primary informal statutory re-structuring that requires debate and time to caregivers. Beyond family networks, it would legitimize begin instituting change in any tangible way. Although the and substantiate important emotional connections in a state cannot immediately change the law, however, it can social field with diverse possibilities for connection. immediately and effectively change rhetoric, and it should However, certain queer theorists make possible an im- do so with regards to caregiving and dependency. I argue portant critique of Rosenbury’s work in this respect. For in this section that the state should validate caregivers these theorists, state identification of social actors tends whenever and wherever they are, and the state should not to restrict rather than empower freedom, because identity discuss disability as necessarily dependency or dependency normalizes and regulates behaviors. That is, assigning per- as necessarily bad. sons to predetermined categories shuts down, not opens up, The state undeniably relies on informal caregivers to sup- creative or effective modes of relating with others. In this port the healthcare system. On a practical level, caregivers view, the change needed in the law is not an expanded for- especially in the home reduce the time patients need to mal recognition of relations, but rather a de-formalization spend in hospitals and other public healthcare facilities. It of all relations.179 is hard to imagine a single hospital functioning in a society While I am sympathetic to the concern over state regula- where the traditional assumption was not that adult parents tion of friendly relations, I do not accept the total disavowal will care for their children and adult children will care for of state support in these efforts. I agree that state regula- their elder parents. The Family and Medical Leave Act and tion of a prescribed identity, presupposing a certain way the National Family Caregiver Support Program attest to we should live our lives, would reduce freedom in living this reality. those lives, but it is less obvious to me that it is problematic Acknowledging this debt to informal caregivers, at least asking the state to support the ways in which we are already in family contexts, the President each year since 1993 living our lives. Nonetheless, I recognize limitations in has proclaimed November “National Family Caregivers Rosenbury’s approach. While it is clearly useful to recog- Month.” President Obama’s most recent 2010 proclama- nize the value of relations outside the marriage contract, tion182 recognizes that “[m]any individuals in need of especially the importance of friends, the law will never be care—including children, elders, and persons with disabili- able to codify all relations. In this respect, “friends,” even ties—would have difficulty remaining safely in their homes loosely defined, still fails to capture a number of actions, for and community without the support of their relatives and instance anonymous caregiving work (such as by volunteers caregivers.”183 The proclamation begins with a nod to a in caregiving institutions or communities). Proliferating range of social actors—“family members, friends, neigh- more legal categories will similarly fail to capture the spec- bors, and concerned individuals across America”184—that trum of attachments we develop in our lives. would suggest a salute to all informal caregivers, regardless It seems to me much could be gained by approaching the of biological relation to their care receivers. By its end, issue of caregiving not only through the category of care- however, the proclamation has moved to honoring only “the givers, composed of persons with a caregiver-identity, but millions of Americans who give endlessly of themselves to also through the function of caregiving itself. I am seeking 180 provide for the health and well-being of a beloved fam- a model, in other words, of acts rather than persons. The ily member.”185 According to the proclamation, “[f]amily state could more directly support the caregiving function by caregivers” are “the foundation of America’s long-term making resources available that are not necessarily attached care system.”186 This has the discursive effect of erasing, to certain subject identities. The state could create and precisely, those “friends, neighbors, and concerned indi- make widely available educational materials about HIV/ viduals” who also provide caregiving work without biologi- AIDS caregiving and its potential emotional stressors. It cal obligation.187 While ostensibly acclaiming the ethics of could also support counseling services or the organization care and selflessness generally, the proclamation ultimately Dango 13 has the effect of acclaiming the family specifically because best assisted with the use of rhetoric that does not consider it is exemplary of those ethics. dependency as necessarily ugly or disability as necessarily If the value of caregiving is, as the proclamation claims, a burden. The state could more explicitly consider persons “easing concerns and contributing to the well-being of as always ends in themselves. Doing so would support per- individuals and families as they go about their daily lives,” sons with disability, including those with HIV/AIDS and it is not self-evident why the proclamation, and the entire caregivers, regardless of the contexts in which they arise. month, should not honor caregiving per se, rather than family caregivers as persons exclusively. Indeed, confin- Conclusion ing the celebration of caregiving only to certain persons The reality of disability generally and of HIV/AIDS in would seem counterproductive to the expressed goals of the America particularly has challenged a number of assump- President. Fairer, more productive, and more reflective of tions regarding the role of sexuality and caregiving in the American reality of caregiving especially in the context relation to social functioning and family. First, disability of disability and HIV/AIDS, would be to affirm caregiving neither is nor should be asexualized, as the law has tended whenever and wherever it occurs. This requires not only to assume. Second, sexuality encompasses a range of ex- an affirmation of the caregiving ethic, abstractly realized. periences beyond procreation, and the law therefore needs It requires also an affirmation of multiple contexts and to affirm its value outside the eugenical contexts in which persons. It will never be possible to exhaustively detail all it has typically confined its analysis. Finally, sexuality caregiving, but this does not excuse the categorical exclu- and caregiving must be seen in the HIV/AIDS context as sion of some caregiving contexts by choice rather than ig- processes that require attention beyond the nuclear fam- norance. To ignore nonfamilial caregiving work related to ily, which means an accommodation of persons with HIV/ HIV/AIDS in particular would only perpetuate the stigma AIDS under the law requires a displacement of the fam- that already disadvantages caregiving work in that context. ily as the naturalized and privatized center of disability The interests of persons with HIV/AIDS, of their caregiv- perspectives. ers, but also of the state that relies on those caregivers, is The state could better accommodate the reality of HIV/ best served by publicly acknowledging this caregiving work. AIDS, as the intent of the ADA and the ADAAA re- The proclamation is problematic not only in what it quires, by distinguishing social functions, especially sexual- leaves out regarding caregivers, however, but also in what it ity and informal caregiving, from the contexts in which does say about care receivers. Specifically, we should raise they were traditionally identified, especially reproductive questions about what is meant by saying a perceived social heterosexuality and nuclear families. This entails increas- good of caregiving is that it allows “individuals in need of ing access to informal caregiving networks wherever they 188 care” to “remain safely in their homes and community.” occur; understanding caregiving functions independent of Ostensibly, this voices a preference for maintaining per- caregiver identities attached to confined social arrange- sons in need of care outside hospitals, public institutions, ments; and affirming caregiving always, without judgment nursing homes, and other places with especially economic of the contexts in which it occurs. In so doing, the state requirements. In turn, the proclamation re-affirms the would be assisting people in living their daily lives, as well tradition of preferably non-subsidized, privatized disability. as assisting itself in better supporting the social actors on The proclamation, in asserting the role of family caregiv- which it relies. ers in “giv[ing] millions of Americans the peace of mind 189 and security that only family can provide,” attests to the 1 Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. (1973). tradition of uneasiness over dependency in the public realm. 2 Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §12101 et No doubt the proclamation would also agree that HIV/ seq. (1990). AIDS, with all its stigmatized associations, ought also be 3 Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U.S. 624 (1998). outside of the public mind. 4 ADA Amendments Act, Public Law No. 110-325, 122 Stat. The logic of the proclamation therefore turns out to be 3553 (codified in 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.). that the state values caregivers because it presupposes care 5 See generally Center for Disease Control and Prevention, HIV/ receivers are a burden, especially an emotional one. This AIDS Basics (2010), available at http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/re- can only further stigmatize the realities faced by care sources/qa/definitions.htm (noting “that the virus has existed in receivers. Furthermore, because the stigma attached to the United States since at least the mid- to late 1970s” and that AIDS symptoms became visible from 1979–1981, leading to persons receiving care also attaches to caregivers, the state public health officials’ adoption of the term AIDS in 1982). undoes its goals by contributing to a cycle of troubling dis- 6 See 29 U.S.C. § 791 (“Employment of individuals with disabil- courses. Not only persons receiving care but their caregiv- ities”), § 793 (“Employment under Federal contracts”), and § ers and also the state supporting those caregivers would be 794 (“Nondiscrimination under Federal grants and programs”). 14 Dango 7 29 U.S.C. § 705(6)(A)-(B) (1973). All Handicapped Children Act does not cover a child with 8 29 U.S.C. § 705(20)(B) (adopting the definition of the AIDS because “there is virtually no evidence that this limita- Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. 12102) tion has adversely affected his educational performance,” (2010). but declining to reach the question under the Rehabilitation Act). Cf. 9 De La Torres v. Bolger, 610 F. Supp. 593, 596 (N.D. Tex. 1985). District 27 County School Board. v. Board of Education, 130 Misc. 2d 398, 413 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1986) (noting that even 10 29 C.F.R. 1613.702(b)(1)-(2) (1985). though the Education of the Handicapped Act does not cover 11 29 C.F.R. 1613.702(c) (1985). children with AIDS, “automatic exclusion from school of 12 “AIDS is the last stage of HIV infection, when a person’s all children with AIDS would violate their rights under the immune system is severely damaged and has difficulty fight- Rehabilitation Act”). ing diseases and certain cancers.” Center for Disease Control 18 Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U.S. 624, 644 (1998). and Prevention, Basic Information about HIV/AIDS (2010), 19 See supra note 10 and accompanying text. available at http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/basic/. These op- portunistic diseases and cancers may be themselves protected 20 See Support Ministries for Persons With AIDS, Inc. v. Village of disabilities. Waterford, 808 F. Supp. 120, 132 (N.D.N.Y. 1992) (affirming the Cain decision that HIV infection, even asymptomatic, 13 HIV infection follows a trajectory of four stages. Center substantially limits major life activities and is therefore a for Disease Control and Prevention, Living with HIV/AIDS disability under the Fair Housing Act); Cain v. Hyatt, 734 F. (2010), available at http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/bro- Supp. 671, 680 (E.D. Pa. 1990) (claiming that persons with chures/livingwithhiv.htm#q2. After a primary infection HIV are substantially limited in major life activities not only stage in which a person may briefly exhibit flu-like symp- because of impaired immune and reproductive systems, but toms, infected persons enter a second “asymptomatic stage” of also because “[societal] prejudices substantially curtail the typically ten years during which the virus continues to erode major life activities of AIDS victims” and “[t]hey are shunned the body’s immune system without manifesting any obvious socially and often excluded from public life”); Benjamin R. v. symptoms. In the third stage, the immune system has been Orkin Exterminating Co., 390 S.E.2d 814, 818 (W. Va. 1990) suppressed enough for physical symptoms to manifest; in the (considering HIV infection as a disability under a Virginia fourth stage, HIV progresses to AIDS. At stake in a consid- statue because it limits that major life activity of “socializa- eration of asymptomatic HIV, then, are none of the mental or tion”); Ray v. School District of DeSoto County, 666 F. Supp. physical impairments that may arise later and be themselves 1524, 1536 (M.D. Fla. 1987) (drawing on the Thomas and per se protected disabilities under the antidiscrimination District 27 decisions that children with the AIDS virus can- legislation. not be denied access to public classroom settings); District 27, 14 The Supreme Court declined to answer precisely this ques- 130 Misc. 2d at 413-15; Thomas, 662 F. Supp. at 381 (noting tion in School Board of Nassau County v. Airline, 480 U.S. 273 limitation on major life activities exists across all stages of (1987). The Court did not address the question of whether HIV infection). asymptomatic infection of contagious diseases was a handicap 21 See Harris v. Thigpen, 941 F.2d 1495, 1523 (11th Cir. Ala. under the Rehabilitation Act, claiming the instant case “does 1991) (claiming Alabama’s segregation of HIV-positive not present, and we therefore do not reach, the question inmates suggests that “[w]hether or not asymptomatic HIV whether a carrier of a contagious disease such as AIDS could infection alone is defined as an actual ‘physical impairment,’ be considered to have a physical impairment, or whether such it is clear that this correctional system treats the inmates such a person could be considered, solely on the basis of conta- that they are unable, or perceived as unable, to engage in giousness, a handicapped person as defined by the Act.” 282 ‘major life activities’ relative to the rest of the prison popula- n.7. tion,” and they are therefore handicapped); Chalk v. United 15 See Doe v. Garrett, 903 F.2d 1455, 1459 (11th Cir. Fla. 1990) States Dist. Ct., 840 F.2d 701, 706 (9th Cir. 1988) (noting (dismissing plaintiff’s claims on other grounds but nonethe- that persons with HIV “may remain without symptoms for less noting that “it is well established that infection with an extended period of time,” but this is irrelevant for the con- AIDS constitutes a handicap for purposes of the Act”); sideration of risk in transmission of virus in school settings); Martinez v. School Board of Hillsborough County, Florida, 861 Martinez, 861 F.2d at 1506 (focusing on “risk of transmis- F.2d 1502, 1506 (11th Cir. Fla. 1988) (holding that both sion” as qualifying circumstance independent of symptomatic mental retardation and AIDS are “handicaps under section development); Dolton, 694 F. Supp. at 445 (claiming that 504 of the Rehabilitation Act”); Thomas v. Atascadero Unified “mere prospect of such a limitation [on interacting with School Dist., 662 F. Supp. 376, 379 (C.D. Cal. 1986) (noting others] is certain to restrict social interaction with those of that “persons infected with the AIDS virus suffer significant the opposite sex” and limit major life activities); Robertson v. impairments of their major life activities” and “may have Granite City Community Unit School Dist. No. 9, 684 F. Supp. difficulty caring for themselves, performing manual tasks, 1002, 1007 (S.D. Ill. 1988) (claiming an “AIDS-related walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and complex” is “a physical impairment which substantially limits working, among other life functions”). [plaintiff’s] major life activities); Local 1812, AFGE v. United 16 Doe v. Dolton Elementary School District, 694 F. Supp. 440, States Dept. of State, 662 F. Supp. 50, 54 (D.C. 1987) (claim- 445 (N.D. Ill. 1988). This anticipates the heteronormative ing that in “the present period of speculation and concern logic of the procreation-test I discuss below. See infra text over the incurable and fatal nature of AIDS there is no doubt accompanying notes 45-56 and 81-111. that a known carrier of the virus which causes it is perceived to be handicapped”). 17 See Doe v. Belleville Public School District No. 118, 672 F. For an analysis along both axes simultaneously, see, e.g., Supp. 342, 344 (S.D. Ill. 1987) (finding the Education for 22 Thomas, 662 F. Supp., 379 (noting that “[p]ersons infected Dango 15 with the AIDS virus suffer significant impairments of their whether “the Court of Appeals, in affirming a grant of major life activities,” and that “even those who are asympo- summary judgment, cited sufficient material in the record tomatic have abnormalities in their hemic and reproductive to determine, as a matter of law, that respondent’s infection systems making procreation and childbirth dangerous to with HIV posed no direct threat to the health and safety of themselves and others” (emphasis added)). her treating dentist.” The ADA permits a healthcare provider 23 See Cain, 734 F. Supp. at 679 (“even if it were asymptomatic, to deny accommodation to a person with a disability if “such the plaintiff’s HIV infection constitutes a substantial physical individual poses a direct threat to the health or safety of limitation upon major life activities,” because “significant others,” §12182(b)(3). The Bragdon Court cited evidence injury to the reproductive system” impedes those “interests in that the threat of HIV transmission is sufficiently contained conceiving and raising one’s own children [that] ‘have been when proper medical procedures are followed, but ultimately deemed “essential,” “basic civil liberties of man,” and “rights declined to answer the question definitely and instead re- far more precious… than property rights”’” (citing Stanley v. manded it to the Court of Appeals for re-assessment in light Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651 (1972) (citations omitted)). of said evidence. Bragdon, 524 U.S. at 648-655. 24 See 42 U.S.C. §§ 12111-12117 (“Title I – Employment”); ibid., 37 Bragdon, 524 U.S. at 628-29. § 12132 (“no qualified individual with a disability shall, by 38 See supra note 8 and accompanying text. reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be 39 Bragdon, 524 U.S. at 631. denied the benefits of services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity”). 40 See supra notes 15-33 and accompanying text. 25 See 42 U.S.C. §§ 12141-12213 (public, private, and miscel- 41 Bragdon, 524 U.S. at 646-647 (deferring to the DOJ and laneous accommodations for persons with disabilities); 47 EEOC). See also agencies not cited by the Bragdon Court U.S.C. § 225 (“Telecommunications services for hearing- but addressed in lower court opinions, e.g., 5 C.F.R. § impaired and speech-impaired individuals”); ibid., 611 1636.103 (Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board); ); (“Closed-captioning of public service announcements”). 7 C.F.R. § 15e.103 (Department of Agriculture); 22 C.F.R. § 1701.103 (Institute of Peace); 24 C.F.R. Ch. I, Subch. A, 26 42 U.S.C. 12102 (1990). See supra note 8 and accompanying App. I (Department of Housing and Urban Development); text. 28 C.F.R. § 35.104 (Department of Justice); 29 C.F.R. § 34.2 27 Hearings on S. 933, the Americans with Disabilities Act Before (Department of Labor); 34 C.F.R. § 1200.103 (Department the Subcomm. on the Handicapped of the S. Comm. on Labor and of Education); 45 C.F.R. § 2301.103 (Arctic Research Com- Human Resources, 101st Cong., 346 (1989) (memorandum from mission). 45 C.F.R. § 2490.103 (James Madison Memorial Douglas Kamiec, Acting Assistant Att’y Gen. of the United Fellowship Foundation). All agencies cited here expressly States to Arthur Culvahouse, Jr., Counsel to the Pres.). include “HIV disease (whether symptomatic or asymptom- 28 See H. R. Rep. No. 101-485, pt. 2, at 52 (1990); S. Rep. No. atic)” as a physical impairment. 101-116, at 22 (1989). 42 Bragdon, 524 U.S., 637. 29 42 U.S.C. § 12116. 43 Ibid., 638. 30 EEOC, Technical Assistance Manual on the Employment Provi- 44 Ibid., 639-642. sions (Title I) of the Americans with Disabilities Act, T-II (1992). 45 According to the most recent CDC data, male-to-male 31 See Gates v. Rowland, 39 F.3d 1439, 1446 (9th Cir. 1994) sexual contact continues to account for more than half of (expanding their decision in Chalk to an ADA context and new HIV infection diagnoses in the United States each year. finding “it is the possible transmission of the virus to oth- Center for Disease Control and Prevention, HIV/AIDS Sta- ers that is the basis of the individual’s disability under the tistics (2010), available at http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/ provisions of the Act”); Doe v. Kohn Nast & Graf, P.C., 862 F. factsheets/us.htm. Supp. 1310, 1321 (E.D. Pa. 1994) (finding plaintiff with HIV 46 See Lisa M. Keels, “ ‘Substantially Limited’: The Reproduc- is protected under ADA after paraphrasing the Cain decision tive Rights of Women Living with HIV/AIDS,” Baltimore as claiming “a person who is HIV-infected is substantially Law Review 39 (2010): 392-3 (claiming that “Bragdon inad- limited in a major life activity because of the significant risk vertently supported the notion that women with HIV/AIDS of transmitting the HIV infection to a partner or a child, should not reproduce”); ibid., 403 (arguing “the Court’s thereby endangering their lives”). implicit suggestion that women with HIV/AIDS should not 32 See, e.g., Gonzales v. Garner Food Services, 855 F. Supp. 371, reproduce has contributed to an atmosphere in which women 374 n.5 (N.D. Ga. 1994) (“It is undisputed that AIDS is a who would like to reproduce have been dissuaded from disability within this meaning of the ADA”). following the proper care protocol, due to fear of stigma or 33 See Hoepfl v. Barlow, 906 F. Supp. 317, 319 n.7 (E.D. Va. judgment.” On the particular issues an HIV-positive, preg- 1995) (“[i]t is now settled law HIV-positive individuals are nant woman faces, see Taunya Lovell Banks, “Legal Chal- ‘disabled’ within the meaning of the ADA”); Howe v. Hull, lenges: State Intervention, Reproduction and HIV-Infected 873 F. Supp. 72, 78 (N.D. Ohio 1994) (“AIDS and HIV in- Women,” in HIV, AIDS and Childrearing, ed. Ruth R. Faden fection are both disabilities within the meaning of the ADA). and Nancy E. Kass (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 145 (noting “[m]any Americans believe that a pregnant 34 The added expense was only for “use of the hospital’s facili- woman should abort a fetus that will be born with a disability ties,” as Bragdon “offered to perform the work at a hospital at and that women with disabilities are inappropriate mothers. no extra charge.” Bragdon, 524 U.S. at 624. Disability in either mother or potential offspring is seen as a 35 42 U.S.C. § 12182(a). negative”). One scholar claims a “right to have children,” and after addressing various oppositions, concludes, “many of the 36 A second question, outside the purview of this article, was counterarguments designed to show that it may be morally 16 Dango wrong to have children provide no compelling basis for re- and so the court must begin “by identifying those activities stricting the rights of HIV-infected women to have children. that are important in the life of a three-year old,” but finding Neither the potential for harm to children nor the adverse the child no more limited in those other activities than other distributional consequences for society overall offer the kind three-year-olds, defers instead to a “regarded as” test). of arguments that provide a secure foundation for restrictive 51 Waddell v. Valley Forge Dental Associates, 276 F.3d 1275 n.4 or punitive public policies aimed at limiting women’s rights to (11th Cir. 2001) (affirming summary judgment for defendants have children.” Madison Powers, “The Moral Right to Have on other grounds, but noting in a long footnote that Bragdon Children,” in HIV, AIDS and Childrearing, ed. Ruth R. Faden did not decide whether HIV was a “per se” disability and that and Nancy E. Kass (New York, Oxford University Press, Sutton and Kirkingburg demonstrate the Supreme Court’s 1996), 342. For court paradoxes resulting from the need insistence on individualized assessment of disability); Solario to simultaneously accommodate an HIV-positive pregnant v. American Airlines, Inc., 2002 WL 485284 (S.D. Fl.) (noting woman and acknowledge that person as disadvantaged, see that when Bragdon is read together with Sutton’s individual- Lesley v. Chie, 250 F.3d 47, 49 (1st Cir. Mass. 2001) (describ- ized inquiry mandate, HIV status is not a per se disability). ing facts of the case with an HIV-positive pregnant woman See Albertsons v. Kirkenburg, 527 U.S. 555 (1999); Sutton v. suing her gynecologist for sending her to another hospi- United Airlines, 527 U.S. 471 (1999). tal “better qualified to handle deliveries by HIV-positive 52 Cf. Cruz Carillo v. AMR Eagle, Inc., 148 F.Supp.2d 142 patients”); Keels notes this case epitomizes an incongruous (D.P.R. 2001) (even where plaintiff testified that his HIV reproduction standard when “the plaintiff defined herself status dictated his decision not to have children, plaintiff as substantially limited in reproducing, yet she wanted her failed to meet burden because he did not introduce expert obstetrician not to view her as such when she was pregnant.” medical evidence as to how HIV substantially limits a man’s Keels, “Substantially Limited,” 399. ability to reproduce or “statistical evidence” of significant risk 47 See Doe v. Dekalb County Sch. Dist., 145 F.3d 1441, 1445 of infection of female partners by men with HIV). (11th Cir. Ga. 1998) (paraphrasing Bragdon’s holding as “[a] 53 Gutwaks v. American Airlines, Inc., 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS person who is infected with HIV is ‘disabled’ for purposes 16833 (N.D. Tex. Sept. 2, 1999). of the ADA”); Rivera v. Heyman, 157 F.3d 101, 103 (2d Cir. 54 Although Gutwaks comments “there was gossip about his N.Y. 1998) (paraphrasing “[t]he Supreme Court recently sexual orientation” in the workplace, the court’s decision confirmed that HIV infection is a disability under the makes no reference to sexual orientation, and it applies to Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.”); Pope v. Kaiser populations beyond homosexual men. Ibid., 2. Still, it is Foundation Health Plan, 1998 WL 865646 (E.D. Cal. 1998) hard to ignore the possibility of heterosexist bias in the court’s (while granting summary judgment on grounds that without decision, especially where HIV/AIDS in America is indel- allegation the employer had knowledge of HIV status, ibly marked with connections to homosexuality. See supra plaintiff’s discrimination claim fails under the ADA, para- note 45 and accompanying text. It is a situation similar to the phrases Bragdon as “recognizing HIV as a disability under decision of Bowers v. Hardwick upholding a Georgia law that the ADA”); Clark v. North Cent. Mgmt., Inc., 1999 U.S. Dist. criminalized sodomy, a law that technically applies to all con- LEXIS 5172 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 5, 1999) (claiming “there is no senting adults, but which was ruled on by the Court through question plaintiff is a qualified employee with a disability” answering the narrower question of whether the constitution because under Bragdon, “HIV infection is a disability within confers “a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in the meaning of the ADA”). sodomy.” Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 190 (1986). 48 See Wallengren v. Samuel French, Inc., 39 F. Supp. 2d 343, 347 55 Gutwaks, 14. (S.D.N.Y. 1999) (claiming plaintiff’s “AIDS condition is well within the meaning of ‘disability’ under the ADA” because 56 Blanks v. Southwestern Bell Communications, 310 F.3d 398, “of the substantially limiting effects of HIV and AIDS, as 401 (5th Cir. 2002). But cf. Teachout v. N.Y. City Dep’t of identified in Bragdon, on an individual’s ability to work”); Educ., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7405, *25-26 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. Jones v. Rehabilitation Hosp., 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19082 22, 2006) (repudiating the Blanks decision and concluding (S.D. Ind. Nov. 29, 2000) (drawing on Ginsburg’s concur- “[i]t is not necessary for a plaintiff to want to have children, rence to conclude “HIV and AIDS are impairments that or for a plaintiff to plan to have children, to show that his substantially limit a major life activity,” especially because ability to have children has been substantially limited by affirmed by the fact that “both the agency interpretations of infection with HIV. If, however, a plaintiff were to claim the ADA and the Act’s legislative history support the conclu- that his HIV infection substantially limited his ability to sion that Congress intended HIV infection to be a per se reproduce, but the evidence in the record showed that he was disability”). See Bragdon, 524 U.S. at 656 (Ginsburg, J., con- physically incapable of reproduction for reasons unrelated curring) (“HIV infection is ‘a physical . . . impairment that to his HIV-positive status, such as a voluntary irreversible substantially limits . . . major life activities,’ or is so perceived, sterilization, then in that case, the plaintiff would not have a including the afflicted individual’s family relations, employ- disability under the ADA.”). ment potential, and ability to care for herself. . .” (citations 57 See Chevron v. Echazabal, 536 U.S. 391 (2002), U.S. Airways omitted)). v. Barnett, 535 U.S. 391 (2002); Toyota v. Williams, 534 U.S. 49 See supra note 8 and accompanying text. 184 (2002); Murphy v. United Parcel Service, 527 U.S. 516 (1999); Albertsons v. Kirkenburg, 527 U.S. 555 (1999); Sutton 50 See, e.g., Roe v. Village of Westmont, 2003 WL 444508 (N.D. v. United Airlines, 527 U.S. 471 (1999). Ill.) (concluding a police officer deemed unfit for employment after testing positive for HIV is protected under the “regard- 58 Public Law No. 110-325, 122 Stat. 3553 (codified in 42 ed as” prong of ADA’s disability definition). See also U.S. U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.). v. Happy Time Day Care Center, 6 F.Supp.2d 1073, 1079-80 59 42 U.S.C. § 12101(a)(4)-(7) (2008). (W.D. Wis. 1998) (noting procreation as a major life activity 60 42 U.S.C. § 12102(2)(B) (2008). does not apply to the instant case of a three-year-old child Dango 17 61 Ibid., § 12102(4)(D) (2008). of California Press, 2008), 1-2. Sedgwick comments on the 62 Ibid. contradiction of homosexual definition “on the one hand as an issue of active importance primarily for a small, distinct rela- 63 The greatest question is what accommodations an employer is tively iced homosexual minority […] and seeing it on the other required to provide an employee who does not have a disabil- hand an issue of continuing, determinative importance in the ity per se, but is regarded as having one, that is, who qualifies lives of people across a spectrum of sexualities.” Ibid., 1. for protection under the third and only the third prong of the ADA definition. See supra note 8 and accompanying text. 77 Samuel R. Bagenstos has argued that inconsistencies within See, e.g., Stephen F. Befort, “Let’s Try This Again: The ADA the statute and subsequent court cases reflect inconsistencies Amendments Act of 2008 Attempts to Reinvigorate the within the disability rights movement generally. See Samuel ‘Regarded As’ Prong of the Statutory Definition of Disabil- R. Bagenstos, Law and the Contradictions of the Disability ity,” Utah Law Review (forthcoming 2010); Alex B. Long, Rights Movement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), “Introducing the New and Improved Americans with Dis- 41-2. Bagenstos points out that court cases have opposed abilities Act: Assessing the ADA Amendments Act of 2008,” the idea “that ‘disability’ is universal, because we all have a Northwestern Law Review Colloquim 217 (2008): 103; John variety of abilities that exist on a spectrum,” but notes “dis- W. Parry and Amy L. Allbright, “The ADA Amendments ability rights advocates subordinated that universality notion Act of 2008: Analysis and Commentary,” Mental and Physical to the independence and minority-group arguments in the Law Report 32 (2008). campaign to enact the ADA.” Ibid., 44. 64 The Amendments single out Sutton and Toyota. 42 U.S.C. § 78 Elizabeth F. Emens, “Integrating Accommodation,” Univer- 12101(a)(4) sity of Pennsylvania Law Review 156 (2008): 882. 65 ThatBragdon and its problematics were in the minds of at least 79 Ibid. See also ibid., 889 (calling for a “radical social model” some in Congress is evidenced in the Congressional record, but to “show that the world we inhabit is less than ideal for every- not codified in the law. See, e.g., Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s state- one, not just for people with disabilities”). ment: “Although the ADA clearly intended to protect people 80 See supra text accompanying notes 45-50. living with HIV[,] . . . all too often whether or not they could 81 See supra text accompanying notes 39-44. proceed with their discrimination claim has turned on the court’s view of evidence as to their child-bearing ability and 82 See supra note 46. intentions: highly personal, intimate matters that are com- 83 See generally Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics pletely unrelated to the discrimination they experienced,” 154 and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (New York: Congressional Report H8297 (daily ed. Sept. 17, 2008). Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003), 3-184 (tracing eugenical 66 Keels, “Substantially Limited,” 420. thought and policy in America from evolutionary biology to programs of sterilization and birth control before World War 67 I turn to this point in the following sections. See infra text II); Harry Bruinius, Better for All the World: The Secret History accompanying notes 81-111. of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity 68 5 U.S.C. 301; 28 U.S.C. 509, 510; 42 U.S.C. 12134 § (New York: Knopf, 2006), 23-81 (connecting programs of 35.104(1)(ii) sterilization with eugenic thinking in early twentieth-century 69 See, e.g., Labrue v. GAB Robins N. Am., 2009 U.S. Dist. America); Marouf Arif Hasian, Jr., The Rhetoric of Eugenics LEXIS 65570 (D. Kan. July 28, 2009) (collecting and affirm- in Anglo-American Thought (Athens: University of Georgia ing “numerous other circuit and district courts that have held Press, 1996),1-51 (describing the origins of eugenic thought that the ADA amendments do not apply to conduct prior to in America and its popularization from 1900-1940). the effective date of the statute”). 84 See generally Black, War, 63-67 (describing the development 70 See, e.g., Horgan v. Simmons, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36915 of forced sterilization in Indiana prisons and its statutory ap- (N.D. Ill. 2010) (rejecting defendant’s argument that HIV- proval in 1907). positive plaintiff is not disabled because “[d]rawing all infer- 85 See generally Black, War, 67-68 (outlining statutory develop- ences in Plaintiffs favor, it is certainly plausible—particularly, ments in other states that ratified forced sterilization before under the amended ADA—that Plaintiff’s HIV positive 1924); Bruinius, Better, 50-77 (describing Virginia’s statutory status substantially limits a major life activity: the function of developments before and after Supreme Court affirmation); his immune system”). Harry Hamilton Laughlin, Eugenical Sterilization in the 71 ADA (1990), 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). United States (Chicago: Municipal Court of Chicago, 1922) (collecting all statutory developments in America related to 72 ADA (1990), 42 U.S.C. § 12132. sterilization before January 1, 1922). 73 ADA (1990), 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(5)(A). 86 Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927). 74 See, in addition, explicit reference to entities and their responsi- 87 Ibid., 205. bilities in subtitle B of Title II. 42 U.S.C. § 12141-12213. 88 Ibid., 207. 75 See, e.g., Eli Clare, Exile and Pride (2nd ed., Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2009), 8 (noting a social model 89 See generally Black, War, 385 (describing a “retreat from eu- “makes theoretical and political sense but misses important genics” in America after World War II, but noting “the end emotional realities”). was an inexorably slow process devoid of mea culpas, one that saw the major players withdraw only with great reluctance”). 76 The universalizing/minoritizing distinction draws from the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who first theorized the 90 See Sedgwick, Epistemology, 40-44. In reference to the distinction in the context of homosexuality. See Eve Kosof- search for biological determinants of sexuality, Sedgwick sky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: University worries “that there currently exists no framework in which 18 Dango to ask about the origins or development of individual gay of sexual potential or potency. Disabled people are subject to identity that is not already structured by an implicit, trans- infantilization, especially disabled people who are perceived individual Western project or fantasy of eradicating that as being ‘dependent.’ Just as children are assumed to have no identity.” Ibid., 41. See also Black, War, 411 (eugenics is still sexuality, so disabled people are similarly denied the capacity alive in contemporary programs of “human eugenics” and for sexual feeling.” Ibid., 10. “genetic counseling”). 105 It is interesting to note in this respect that in many states, 91 See supra note 46. persons without a certain mental capacity are not consid- 92 See supra note 46. ered capable under the law to consent to sexual relations. Elizabeth Emens, drawing on the work of Deborah Denno, 93 See supra note 46 and accompanying text. claims that “[p]er se restrictions on sexual activity by and 94 See supra text accompanying note 66. with people with disabilities stigmatize such individuals and permit families and guardians to deny the possibility of 95 The Amendments state that major life activities “are not limited sexuality, a mindset that may itself contribute to the risk of to” those listed. 42 U.S.C. 12102(2)(A). abuse.” Elizabeth F. Emens, “Intimate Discrimination: The 96 Ibid. State’s Role in the Accidents of Love,” Harvard Law Review 122 (2009), 1390. See Deborah W. Denno, “Sexuality, Rape, 97 46 U.S.C. §12211(b). and Mental Retardation,” University of Illinois Law Review 2 98 Homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Sta- (1997): 315-434. tistical Manual of Mental Disorders when it underwent revi- 106 This gains special force in the HIV/AIDS context where the sions for its third edition (DSM-III). The APA stated that prescription becomes criminalization. Two thirds of Ameri- “homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, can states have statutes criminalizing persons with HIV, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabili- often with a felony, if they do not disclose their serostatus to ties.” American Psychiatric Association, “Position Statement a sexual partner. See Lambda Legal, HIV Criminalization on Homosexuality and Civil Rights” (1973), reprinted in (2010), available at http://www.lambdalegal.org/our-work/ American Journal of Psychiatry 131 (1974): 497. publications/general/state-criminal-statutes-hiv.html. 99 See, e.g., American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and 107 Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV Text Revision (DSM IV-TR), 302.6 (Gender Identity Disorder in Children), 108 See generally Laura A. Rosenbury & Jennifer E. Rotham, 302.85 (Gender Identity Disorder in Adolescents or Adults). “Sex In and Out of Intimacy,” Emory Law Journal 59 (2010): Although beyond the scope of this article, it is interesting to 823 n.85 (collecting scholarship that positively appraises the note in this context intersexed persons born with ambiguous Lawrence decision for this reason). genitalia. The intersex condition could have radical implica- 109 Lawrence, 539 U.S., 558. tions for the workplace; as it is not transsexualism and because it does arise from a “physical” condition, it could qualify as 110 Ibid., 567. a protected ADA disability. (See infra text accompanying 111 Rosenbury and Rotham, Sex, 825-29. notes 100-102.) Whether this is desirable is another ques- tion, and to label “intersex” per se a disability raises issues of 112 Lawrence, 539 U.S., 567. stigma that both disability and intersex activists have fought 113 See Shakespeare et al., Sexual Politics of Disability, 87 (com- to dispel. But if a workplace were to equally “accommodate” menting how “typical situation of providing three public intersex persons, whether by progressive choice or by ADA lavatories, for gentlemen, ladies and disabled people, is a mandate, the consequence might be no less than a decon- symbolic representation of the degendering to which disabled struction of the gender binary, with consequences for practices people are subject”). and policies ranging from dyadic bathrooms to reproductive 114 See supra text accompanying notes 104-06. health care. Kate Haas hopes that “as the Americans with Disabilities Act and other anti-discrimination laws integrate 115 This is in line with ADA AG A4.22.3 Clear Floor Space (al- more and more people with different physical characteristics lowing “the use of ‘unisex’ or ‘family’ accessible toilet rooms and abilities, society will begin to accept physical differences in alterations when technical infeasibility can be demon- as a natural and positive part of being human. At the point strated. Experience has shown that the provision of accessible that our society makes room for the intersexed through laws “unisex” or single-user restrooms is a reasonable way to pro- prohibiting gender reassignment surgery and unnecessary vide access for wheelchair users and any attendants, especially genital reconstruction surgery on children, then people will when attendants are of the opposite sex”). begin to acknowledge the existence of intersexuals.” Kate 116 See supra text accompanying notes 81-93. Haas, “Who Will Make Room for the Intersexed?,” American Journal of Law and Medicine 30 (2004): 68. 117 According to the 2006-2008 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates, 50.2% of the population 15 years and over 100 Adrienne L. Hiegel, “The ADA as a Moral Code,” Columbia are married. U.S. Census Bureau, 2006-2008 American Com- Law Review 94 (1994): 1453. munity Survey (2008), available at http://factfinder.census.gov/. 101 Ibid. 118 Note also that only a third of children are in married-couple 102 Ibid., 1476. family households, with approximately one third in male householder households with no wife present and one third in 103 See supra text accompanying notes 45-56. female householder households with no husband present. Ibid. 104 See generally, Tom Shakespeare et al., The Sexual Politics 119 See generally Carol Stack, All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival of Disability (London: Continuum International, 1997). in a Black Community (New York: Basic Books, 1975). Not- “Stereotypes of disability often focus on asexuality, on lack Dango 19 ing in the context of poverty how “[t]he needs of families York: Columbia University Press, 1977): 17. living at bare subsistence are so large compared to their aver- 125 Ibid., 89. age daily income that it is impossible for families to provide independently for fixed expenses and daily needs,” Stack 126 Barbara Welster, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820- claims “[t]he poor adopt a variety of tactics in order to sur- 1860,” American Quarterly 18 (1966): 151. vive,” especially “immers[ing] themselves in a domestic circle 127 Thomson, Extraordinary, 89. of kinfolk who will help them.” Ibid., 29. In an analysis of the “Black urban poor,” Stack argues “that the ‘household’ 128 The privatization of at least physical disability was also codi- and its group composition [is] not a meaningful unit to isolate fied in many city ordinances in the form of what have been for an analysis of family life,” because persons may belong popularly called “ugly laws,” which prohibited in public view to multiple households in order to achieve all the functions any person “who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed associated with the traditional family. Ibid., 31. in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” and which Susan Schweik has traced back to an 1897 San 120 The first definition of “family” provided by the Oxford English Francisco ordinance that spread across the country and most Dictionary is “The servants of a house or establishment; the notoriously to Chicago in 1911 (where it was not repealed household,” emphasizing etymologically the link between until 1974). Susan Marie Schweik, The Ugly Laws: Disabil- family membership and household duties or responsibili- ity in Public (New York: New York University Press, 2009). ties, including the raising of children. family, Oxford English nd As Thomson notes that “the history of begging is virtually Dictionary I.1.a, 2 ed. (New York, Oxford University Press, synonymous with the history of disability,” many of these 1989). The OED defines “care-taking” as “Taking care of, ordinances were targeted at removing from sight not only the esp. in the sense of taking charge of a house, etc.,” and the “ugliness” of disability, but also, I argue, the ugliness of eco- contemporary understanding of the word’s association with nomic dependency, where dependency is again only to be for childrearing and assisting the impaired would seem to derive, children, in the home. Thomson, Extraordinary, 35. Thom- then, precisely within a family context. care-taking, Oxford English Dictionary, def. b., ibid. son confirms: “Eliminating disabled people as discordant social elements is the logical extension of an ideology that 121 See generally Martha Albertson Fineman, The Autonomy esteems national and individual progress toward self-reliance, Myth: A Theory of Dependency (New York: New Press, 2004). self-management, and self-sufficiency.” Ibid. Fineman claims that “[f]or the modern private family, protection from public interference remains the articulated 129 Thomson, Extraordinary, 35. norm—state intervention continues to be cast as exceptional, 130 Rayna Rapp and Faye Ginsburg, “Enabling Disability: Re- requiring some justification.” Ibid., 109. “However, privacy writing Kinship, Reimagining Citizenship,” Public Culture 13 has not been awarded to just any group considering itself (2001): 544. a family. The contour of the family entitled to protection through privacy has historically been defined as the reproduc- 131 Fineman, Autonomy Myth, 31. tive unit of husband and wife, giving primacy to the marital 132 Ibid., 35 tie.” Ibid., 110. 133 Ibid. 122 The focus of much research into the social consequences of disability assumes the family as the environmental context, 134 Ibid., 47. for instance by framing questions with reference to the effects 135 Ibid., xxiii. of disability on marriage or on parenthood. One literature 136 Rapp and Ginsburg, “Enabling Disability,” 540. review of disability and the family notes that “[i]n accordance with the assumption of the independent, self-contained 137 Ibid., 534. nuclear family, the majority of research on disability and 138 See generally Katie E. Mosack and Andrew Petroll, “Pa- family has focused on the impact of disability on the relation- tients’ Perspectives on Informal Caregiver Involvement in ship between husband and wife.” Julia Drew, “Disability and HIV Health Care Appointments,” AIDS Patients Care and the Self-Contained Family: Revisiting the Literature on Dis- STDs 23 (2009): 1044 nn. 23-27 (collecting studies demon- ability and Family” (paper presented at the annual meeting strating informal caregivers “improve medication adherence of the American Sociological Association, New York, New among HIV-positive people” and suggesting informal care- York, August 11, 2007), available at http://www.allacademic. com/meta/p184356_index.html. givers could also productively “influence treatment planning considerations”); Mary M. Mitchell and Amy Knowlton, 123 An assumption here is that the person with disabilities is “Stigma, Disclosure, and Depressive Symptoms among In- a child, perhaps born with impairment, although a person formal Caregivers of People Living with HIV/AIDS,” AIDS might develop impairment through injury or genetic predis- Patients Care and STDs 23 (2009): 611 n.1 (collecting studies position and be in fact a parent or occupy some other position showing “the important role that informal caregivers play in in the family. What is important in the social discourse is not improving HIV health outcomes among disadvantaged drug the actual age of persons, but rather their dependency on the users who experience disparities in these outcomes compared family, hence their occupation of the child-role regardless of to others living with HIV/AIDS). genealogical position. Thus, a literature review notes that the body of research on children of parents with disabilities tends 139 See generally Jody Heymann and Rachel Kidman, “HIV/ to “indicate that these children inevitably undertake caregiv- AIDS, Declining Family Resources and the Community ing responsibilities” and as “young carers” the role of child has Safety Net,” AIDS Care 21 (2009): 35 (reflecting on studies not disappeared from the family but merely been relocated, where “HIV-infected parents, once the primary source of care with impairment trumping age as qualification. Ibid., 12. for their children, often need to become the primary recipi- ent”). See also Molly A. Rose and Barbara Clark-Alexander, 124 Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring “Coping Styles of Caregivers of Children with HIV/AIDS: Physical Disabilities in American Cullture and Literatue (New Implications for Health Professionals,” AIDS Patient Care 20 Dango and STDs 13 (1999): 335 (noting in an American context 17 (1994): 51. that HIV-positive parents of children who have acquired 148 Ibid., 57. HIV-infection perinatally “are often unable to care for their HIV-infected children due to the psychological and physi- 149 Turner et al., “Sources and Determinants,” 139 (emphasis cal demands of their own HIV/AIDS disease” and therefore removed). “there is a need for alternative caregivers for children with 150 Judith Butler, “Against Proper Objects: Introduction,” differ- HIV/AIDS”). ences 6 (1994): 14. 140 See generally Vuyiswa Mathambo and Andy Gibbs, “Ex- 151 Tim Dean, Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of tended Family Childcare Arrangement in a Context of AIDS: Barebacking (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 53. Collapse or Adaptation?,” AIDS Care 21 (2009): 23 (decribing extended family assistance for AIDS caregiving and noting 152 Ibid., 77. that “[i]n most of sub-Saharan Africa, family depicts more 153 Ibid., 80. than biological parents and their children”); Heymann and 154 Ibid., 90. Kidman, “Declining Family Resources,” 37 (outlining the support communities provide for AIDS caregiving, but also 155 Ibid., 95. noting “it is unclear to what degree communities are too over- 156 Ibid., 90. burdened to work alone to strengthen families”). 157 See also Marc Spindelman’s critique of Dean in “Sexual 141 See Mathambo and Gibbs, “Extended Family Childcare,” 22 Freedom’s Shadows,” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism (collecting the literature on both sides). (forthcoming 2011). Wishing to de-romanticize the link 142 See Linda M. Richter and Lorraine Sherr, “Strengthening between sex and death, Spindelman questions what is at Families: A Key Recommendation of the Joint Learning stake in the question of consent to risky practices for persons Initiative on Children and AIDS (JLICA),” AIDS Care 21 who have been abused. He notes: “High-flying psychoana- (2009): 1. lytic accounts of the emergence of bodies and selves weren’t required for them to know what many of them discovered for 143 See supra note 45. themselves in a flash of searing realization during the experi- 144 See generally Robert Bor et al., “HIV/AIDS and the Family: ence—or experiences of their abuse, and sometimes recur- A Review of Research in the First Decade, Journal of Family rently re-experienced after, as dissociation: the mind’s escape Therapy 15 (1993): 187. Bor et al. note that most published from force and violence and injury being inflicted unwanted research, at least in the first decade of HIV/AIDS in America, on the body.” Ibid., 59. describes “the implications of HIV disease for the individual 158 Persons who eschew condom use or who find themselves rather than the family or other social systems”; they hope in alternative kinship organizations probably did not need that “[a]s the problems faced within the family and other psychoanalytic accounts such as Dean’s Lacanian ones to help support systems become clearer, there is likely to be a shift them realize how they got there, nor do they need Lacan to in focus in HIV care […] from the individual to the family sustain the kinship, when, as Dean acknowledges but does system.” Ibid., 188. That most research on disability and ill- not adequately unpack, “material” obligations and relations ness presumes a family context of care, but research on HIV/ might be more binding, especially caregiving needs. AIDS does not, only highlights the extent to which stigma is presumed and isolates the individual. See notes 122-23. But 159 For another analysis of barebacking kinship, indebted to in line with presumed stigma and conflicts with the biologi- Dean, see also Leo Bersani and Adam Phillips, Intima- cal family, it is also interesting to note that “the family” Bor cies (Chicago: University of Chicago: 2010), 42-58. Bersani et al. have in mind is not that biological family, for “the fact claims “[i]t is as if barebackers were experientially confirm- HIV affects social networks beyond the ‘nuclear family’ […] ing a specifically Freudian and Lacanian notion of sexual has meant that researchers have had to re-examine defini- desire as indifferent to personal identity, antagonistic to tions of the family.” Bor et al., “HIV/AIDS and the Fam- ego requirements and regulations, and, following a famous ily,”189. That Bor et al. even have to spend two out of fifteen Freudian dictum, always engaged in group sex even when pages in a literature review “[d]efining the family” suggests the actual participants are limited to the two partners of the just how much HIV/AIDS has radically altered what kinship socially approved couple.” Ibid., 43. even means. For an analysis on stigma’s effect on the trajec- 160 This also means that for children born with HIV because of tory of disease, see generally Angelo A. Alonzo and Nancy pretantal infection, the stigma more likely attaches to the R. Reynolds, “Stigma, HIV and AIDS: An Exploration and parent than to the child. See supra note 46. Elaboration of a Stigma Trajectory,” Social Science & Medicine 41 (1995): 303. 161 Elizabeth F. Emens, “Integrating Accommodation,” Univer- sity of Pennsylvania Law Review 156, no. 4 (2008): 839-922. 145 See generally Karen I. Fredricksen-Goldsen, “HIV/AIDS Caregiving: Predictors of Well-Being and Distress,” Journal 162 Ibid., 855. of Lesbian and Gay Social Services 28 (2007): 67 (concluding 163 Ibid., 842. “[t]here continues to be a need for interventions designed 164 Public Law No. 106-501, codified in 42 U.S.C. 3030s-1 to assist family members caring for those living with HIV/ (2010). AIDS”). 165 See Visitability, http://www.visitability.org/ (last visited Dec. 146 Heather A Turner et al., “Sources and Determinants of 10, 2010). Social Support for Caregivers of Persons with AIDS,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 39 (1998): 139. 166 See Emens, “Intimate Discrimination,” 1394 n.405, 1395 nn.408-414 (collecting relevant statutes at state and local 147 Leonard Pearlin et al., “The Structure and Function of AIDS levels). Caregiving Relationships,” Psychological Rehabilitation Journal Dango 21 167 H. R. 1408, 111th Cong. (2009). make the choice to care for a dependent a real choice, not an 168 Emens, “Intimate Discrimination,” 1394. imposition born of social indifference.” Nussbaum, Frontiers, 170-71. This entails, first of all, public education that “should 169 Eldercare Locator, http://www.eldercare.gov/ (last visited emphasize the importance of care work as a part of life for Dec. 10, 2010). both men and women, trying to break down the reluctance 170 Funds are allotted “among the States proportionately based men feel about doing this sort of work. Id., 214. This may on the population of individuals 70 years of age or older in be especially important in the context of HIV/AIDS, which the States.” 42 U.S.C. 3030s-1 (f)(1)(A) (2010). In fiscal year has in America implicated a number of male caregivers. See 2010, the NFCSP was authorized $154,220,000. Depart- generally Betty Jay Kramer, “Men Caregivers: An Over- ment of Health and Human Services, Justification of Estimates view,” in Men as Caregivers, ed. Betty J. Kramer and Edward for Appropriations Committee (Administration of Aging, H. Thompson, Jr. (New York: Springer, 2002), 12 (noting 2010), 12. that “[m]any men will not be prepared” for the caregiving roles changing social and health trends rely on them to fill); 171 42 U.S.C. 3030s-1(b)(1) (2010). Lenard W. Kaye, “Service Utilization and Support Provi- 172 42 U.S.C. 3030s-1(b)(2) (2010). sion of Caregiving Men,” in Men as Caregivers, 363 (listing particular ideological beliefs that may limit a male caregiver 173 Department of Health and Human Services, Justification, 42. from accessing support systems). In addition to education, 174 Fineman, The Autonomy Myth, 54. the CA calls for a “transformation of the workplace, through 175 Rosenbury, “Friends with Benefits?” 189. new flexibility and new ethical norms,” for as “young workers learn to think of care as part of their lives, they become less 176 Rosenbury claims this “contributes to gender inequality by willing to accept rigid workplaces, and employers who offer encouraging individuals to engage in domestic coupling flex-time and part-time options will attract the most skilled rooted in a history of patriarchy and then stigmatizing those workers.” Nussbaum, Frontiers, 214, 215-16. The Family and who live outside of that coupling.” Ibid., 212. Medical Leave Act provides some support in this direction, 177 Ibid., 219. although I have argued the state can go further in recogniz- ing nonfamilial caregivers. To encourage the functioning 178 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1)(C) (2010). of caregiving, the state must be attuned to the resources and 179 This argument has been made most forcefully in assessing the protections necessary to make caregiving possible wherever it merits of expanding marriage to include homosexual couples. occurs. See generally Michael Warner, The Trouble with Normal(New 182 Proclamation from 29 October 2010, available at http:// York: Free Press, 1999), 81-148. www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/10/29/presiden- 180 Of course, the law requires categories and works with the tial-proclamation-national-family-caregivers-month. premise of them. This is an effect of the English language 183 Ibid. more generally. Persons raised to learn English as their primary language exhibit a “noun bias” that privileges reli- 184 Ibid. ance on nouns rather than on verbs. Our cognition therefore 185 Ibid. (emphasis added). relies more often on things than on processes. It is more natural and usually more efficient for us to conceive subjects, 186 Ibid. not connections among subjects. In law, it might be easier to 187 Ibid. expand categories so as to include more subjects, rather than 188 Ibid. to directly address these intersubject connections. Thus, it is more plausible to ask the state to recognize the category of 189 Ibid. friends than it is to ask the state to recognize the various and dynamic work done by friends. Nonetheless, the state could easily accommodate a number of policies without having to radically alter this paradigm of law, as I discuss presently. Bibliography 181 I have alluded here to the “Capabilities Approach” (CA) most Alonzo, Angelo A., and Nancy R. Reynolds. “Stigma, HIV and forcefully detailed in recent years by Martha Nussbuam. See AIDS: An Exploration and Elaboration of a Stigma Theory.” generally Martha C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (New Social Science and Medicine 41 (1995): 303-15. York: Belknap, 2006). The CA, in Nussbaum’s account, American Psychiatric Association. “Position Statement on Ho- “holds that a key task of a nation’s constitution, and the legal mosexuality and Civil Rights.” American Journal of Psychiatry tradition that interprets it, is to secure for all citizens the pre- 131 (1974): 497. requisites of a life worthy of human dignity—a core group of ‘capabilities’—in areas of central importance to human life.” Arnow-Richman, Rachel. “Public Law and Private Process: To- Martha C. Nussbaum, “Foreword—Constitutions and Capa- ward an Incentivized Organizational Justice Model of Equal bilities: ‘Perception’ Against Lofty Formalism,” Harvard Law Employment Quality for Caregivers.” Utah Law Review 25 Review 121 (2007): 7. The “political goal” of legal projects (2007): 25-86. should be “capability, not actual functioning,” which is to say Bagenstos, Samuel R. Law and the Contradictions of the Disbaility the law should make possible functioning without determin- Rights Movement. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. ing in advance what that functioning accomplishes, or who is doing the functioning, so long as it is freely available to ———. “Subordination, Stigma, and ‘Disability.’” Virginia Law all. Ibid., 12. In the context of care, Nussbaum notes that Review 86 (2000): 397-534. caregivers “frequently lose out in all sorts of ways through Banks, Taunya Lovell. “Legal Challenges: State Intervention, bad arrangements,” and she calls for “public policies that Reproduction and HIV-Infected Women.” In HIV, AIDS 22 Dango and Childrearing, edited by Ruth R. Faden and Nancy E. Law Review 94 (1994): 1451-94. Kass, 143-77. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Kaye, Lenard W. “Service Utilization and Support Provision of Befort, Stephen F. “Let’s Try This Again: The ADA Amend- Caregiving Men.” In Men as Caregivers, edited by Betty J. ments Act of 2008 Attempts to Reinvigorate the ‘Regarded Kramer and Edward H. Thompson, Jr., 359-78. New York: As’ Prong of the Statutory Definition of Disability.” Utah Springer, 2002. Law Review (forthcoming 2010). Keels, Lisa M. “‘Substantially Limited’: The Reproductive Rights Bersani, Leo, and Adam Phillips. Intimacies. Chicago: University of Women Living with HIV/AIDS.” Baltimore Law Review of Chicago Press, 2008. 39 (2010): 389-422. Black, Edwin. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Cam- King, Michelle R., and Beth S. Herr. “The Consequences and paign to Create a Master Race. New York: Four Walls Eight Implications of a Case-By-Case Analysis Under the Ameri- Windows, 2003. cans with Disabilities Act for Asymptomatic HIV-Positive Bor, Robert, et al. “HIV/AIDS and the Family: A Review of Gay Men and Lesbians Post Bragdon.” Law and Sexuality Research in the First Decade.” Journal of Family Therapy 15 Review 8 (1998): 531-60. (1993): 187-204. Kramer, Betty Jay. “Men Caregivers: An Overview.” In Men Bruinius, Harry. Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced as Caregivers, edited by Betty J. Kramer and Edward H. Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity. New York: Thompson, Jr., 3-19. New York: Springer, 2002. Knopf, 2006. Krieger, Linda Hamilton. “Foreward—Backlash Against the Butler, Judith. “Against Proper Objects: Introduction.” Differences ADA: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Implications for 6, nos. 2, 3 (1994): 1-26. Social Justice Strategies.” Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 21, no.1 (2000): 1-18. ———. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1999. Kunzel, Regina. Criminal Intimacy. Chicago: University of Chi- nd “care-taking, vbl. n.” Def. b. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2 cago Press, 2008. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Laughlin, Harry Hamilton. Eugenical Sterilization in the United nd Clare, Eli. Exile and Pride. 2 ed. Cambridge, MA: South End States. Chicago: Municipal Court of Chicago, 1922. Press, 2009. Long, Alex B. “Introducing the New and Improved Americans Colker, Ruth. “The ADA: A Windfall for Defendants.” Harvard with Disabilities Act: Assessing the ADA Amendments Act Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 34 (1999): 99-163. of 2008.” Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy 103 Dean, Tim. Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of (2008): 217-229. Barebacking. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2009. Mathambo, Vuyiswa, and Andy Gibbs. “Extended Family Denno, Deborah W. “Sexuality, Rape, and Mental Retardation.” Childcare Arrangement in a Context of AIDS: Collapse or University of Illinois Law Review 2 (1997): 315-434. Adaptation?” AIDS Care 21 (2009): 22-27. Drew, Julia. “Disability and the Self-Contained Family: Revisit- McGowan, Miranda Oshige. “Reconsidering the Americans ing the Literature on Disability and Family.” Paper pre- with Disabilities Act.” Georgia Law Review 35, no. 1 (2000): sented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological 27-160. Association, New York, New York, August 11, 2007. http:// McRuer, Robert. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Dis- www.allacademic.com/meta/p184356_index.html. ability. New York: New York University Press, 2006. Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Metnick, Jason M. “Evolving to Asymptomatic HIV as a Dis- Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. ability Per Se: Closing the Loophole in Judicial Precedent.” Emens, Elizabeth F. “Integrating Accommodation.” University of DePaul Journal of Health Care Law 7 (2003-04): 69-104. Pennsylvania Law Review. 156 (2008): 839-922. Mitchell, Mary A., and Amy Knowlton. “Stigma, Disclosure, and ———. “Intimate Discrimination.” Harvard Law Review. 122 Depressive Symptoms among Informal Caregivers of People (2009): 1307-1402. Living with HIV/AIDS.” AIDS Patients Care and STDs 23 (2009): 611-17. “family, n.” Def. I.1.a. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Mosack, Katie E., and Andrew Petroll. “Patients’ Perspectives on Informal Caregiver Involvement in HIV Health Care Fineman, Martha Albertson. The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Appointments.” AIDS Patients Care and STDs 23 (2009): Dependency. New York: New Press, 2004. 1043-51. Fredricksen-Goldsen, Karen I. “HIV/AIDS Caregiving: Predic- Nussbaum, Martha C. “Foreword—Constitutions and Capabili- tors of Well-Being and Distress.” Journal of Lesbian and Gay ties: ‘Perception’ Against Lofty Formalism.” Harvard Law Social Services 28 (2007): 75-92. Review 121 (2007): 4-97. Haas, Kate. “Who Will Make Room for the Intersexed?” Ameri- ———. Frontiers of Justice. New York: Belknap, 2006. can Journal of Law and Medicine 30 (2004): 41-68. O’Brien, Ruth. Bodies in Revolt: Gender, Disability, and a Work- Hasian, Jr., Marouf Arif. The Rhetoric of Eugenics in Anglo-Ameri- place Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge, 2005. can Thought. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Parry, John W., and Amy L. Allbright. “The ADA Amendments Heymann, Jody, and Rachel Kidman, “HIV/AIDS, Declining Act of 2008: Analysis and Commentary.” Mental and Physi- Family Resources and the Community Safety Net.” AIDS cal Law Report 32 (2008): 695-97. Care 21 (2009): 34-42. Pearlin, Leonard, et al. “The Structure and Function of AIDS Hiegel, Adrienne L. “The ADA as a Moral Code.” Columbia Dango 23 Caregiving Relationships.” Psychological Rehabilitation Jour- Welster, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” nal 17 (1994): 51-67. American Quarterly 18 (1966): 151-174. Powers, Madison. “The Moral Right to Have Children.” In HIV, AIDS and Childrearing, edited by Ruth R. Faden and Nancy E. Kass, 320-44. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Rapp, Rayna, and Faye Ginsburg. “Enabling Disability: Rewrit- ing Kinship, Reimagining Citizenship.” Public Culture 13 (2001): 533-56. Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Exis- tence.” Signs 5 (1980): 631-660. Richter, Linda M., and Lorraine Sherr. “Strengthening Families: A Key Recommendation of the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and AIDS (JLICA).” AIDS Care 21 (2009): 1. Rose, Molly A., and Barbara Clark-Alexander. “Coping Styles of Caregivers of Children with HIV/AIDS: Implications for Health Professionals.” AIDS Patient Care and STDs 13 (1999): 335-42. Rosenbury, Laura A. “Friends with Benefits?” Michigan Law Review 106 (2007): 189-242. Rosenbury, Laura A., and Jennifer E. Rothman. “Sex In and Out of Intimacy.” Emory Law Journal 59 (2010): 809-64. Schweik, Susan Marie. The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. ———. “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction is About You.” In Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction, 2nd ed., ed- ited by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, 1-40. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. 1-40. Shakespeare, Tom, et al. The Sexual Politics of Disability. London: Continuum International, 1997. Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor; and AIDS and its Metaphors. New York: Doubleday, 1990. Spindelman, Marc. “Sexual Freedom’s Shadows.” Yale Journal of Law and Feminism (forthcoming 2011). Stack, Carol. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Com- munity. New York: Basic Books, 1975. Tavis, Michelle A. “Lashing Back at the ADA Backlash: How the Americans with Disabilities Act Benefits Americans Without Disabilities.” Tennessee Law Review 76, no. 2 (2009): 311-378. Thompson, Scott. “Abbott, AIDS, and the ADA: Why a Per Se Disability Rule for HIV/AIDS is Both Just and a Must.” Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy 15 (2008): 1-17. Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Turner, Heather A., et al. “Sources and Determinants of Social Support for Caregivers of Persons with AIDS.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 39 (1998): 137-51. Warner, Michael. “Introduction.” In Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory, edited by Michael Warner, viii-xxxi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. ———. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. New York: Free Press, 1999.

24 Dango “Drawing is Nonetheless the Female and Painting the Male”: The Rehabilitation of Color and Decoration by Henri Matisse and His Critics Betty Gibson

Abstract: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in France, use of the conventionally “feminine” modes of expression, color and decoration, became more commonplace as the Academy began to lose influence. The way many art critics and artists began to write about art recategorized and reassessed color and decoration as potentially serious and praiseworthy elements of artistic expression. Although an increasing acceptance of “feminine” aspects of art appears progressive at the surface level, critics and artists continued, both explicitly and implicitly, intentionally and unintentionally, to use the conventional gender hierarchy to describe the relative merit of artistic practices. In this article I argue that the reassessment of color and decoration necessarily reconstructed these “feminine” modes of expression as “masculine.” In order to illustrate such a shift in this process of gendering, I will use as a case study the art and criticism of Henri Matisse. I conclude with a consideration of the Pattern and Decoration Movement in the U.S. in the 1970s, when feminist artists “retook” this territory, with appreciation, from such male modernists as Matisse.

Introduction Historically, large-scale history paintings with a firm basis in drawing would have been considered the most presti- You throw like a girl.” “You drive like a girl.” “You’re gious genre, thus considered “masculine.” However, the such a girl.” In all three of these common colloquial use of these previously subjugated modes of expression was phrases, as well as in cruder versions of them, the a way for avant-garde groups to rebel against the standards comparison of the listener to a girl is a slight on his for high art upheld by the École des Beaux-Arts as well as a or her strength, skill, and/or courage. When using phrases means for the avant-garde artist to assert his own individu- such“ as these, the speaker assumes that the listener un- ality. In other words, instead of conforming to convention derstands the metaphorical meaning behind comparing through practices coded as masculine, avant-garde artists him or her to a girl. The speaker depends on a shared set sought to express their masculine individuality through of stereotypes about “feminine” qualities (frivolous, weak, “feminine” modes of expression. unskilled) that are lesser in status than “masculine” quali- As the use of these previously “feminine” modes of ties (serious, strong/brave, skilled) to communicate an expression became more commonplace and as the Academy insult. It is evident that most people would rather be told began to lose influence, the way many art critics and artists they exhibit what are considered traditionally masculine began to write about art recategorized and reassessed color qualities. Choosing to align oneself with actions and quali- and decoration as potentially serious and praiseworthy ele- ties considered “feminine” would be surprising and worth ments of artistic expression. Although an increasing accep- investigating. tance of “feminine” aspects of art appears progressive at the In fact, in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century surface level, critics and artists continued, both explicitly France, avant-garde groups, beginning most notably with and implicitly, intentionally and unintentionally, to use the the Impressionists, did just that: they began to use bright conventional gender hierarchy to describe the relative merit colors to emphasize surface effects and to paint on a smaller of artistic practices. As such, the reassessment of color scale, practices conventionally considered “feminine.” Due and decoration necessarily reconstructed these “feminine” to their small scale and perceived lack of cerebral content, modes of expression as “masculine.” In order to illustrate such paintings were often criticized as “merely decorative.” such a shift in this process of gendering, I take the art and Furthermore, several avant-garde artists of this period criticism of Henri Matisse as a case study. It is unusual to experimented with decorative media such as ceramics, take a male artist as the subject of a study of gendered art murals, and interior design, also associated with femininity. criticism, but doing so illustrates that using gendered lan- Gibson 25 guage to describe quality and value is ubiquitous. Gendered and color theorist John Gage explains, “All color practices language affects not only the perception of female art- have their specific contexts and their specific rationale, so ists—such as whether or not they are seen to be working in that color must be at last not simply a branch—and a minor an appropriate mode of expression—but also the perception one—of formal analysis, but must be fully integrated into of male artists.1 Looking at Matisse and his critics through the history of art.”4 This examination of Matisse will focus the lens of gendered criticism accounts for the tensions attention on two topics that have often been overlooked or inherent in his art: the perceived frivolity (read feminine) rejected as not serious enough, and will flesh out the gen- of color and decoration versus the perceived seriousness of dered associations that these two terms have accrued. the avant-garde, modernist project (read masculine). These gendered biases influence the way his art is perceived, but The Feminization of Color and also the way he as a person is perceived, with critics and the Decoration artist himself at times conflating the “masculinity” of his Why was color relegated to a subsidiary position in the art with his identity as a man. Western art world? Why was it later coded as feminine? The work and criticism of Matisse is a particularly fertile Color seems unthreatening, and it may seem odd for a con- area for investigation of the shifting valuation of color and cept that seems unrelated to anatomical differences to be decoration for three principal reasons. First, he is inter- gendered. This is particularly the case for English speakers ested in color and decoration in both his art and writing who are not used to the concept of gendered nouns. In fact, throughout his career. Second, because he is a well-known color has been suspect since Antiquity, although the ten- artist with a long career, there is a wide range of available dency toward gendering it evolved many centuries later. In criticism and art to draw from. And third, the gendering Poetics, for example, Aristotle writes that line can cultivate of Matisse’s work is both more complex and longer lasting morality and reason through its ability to define forms and than the criticism and work of other French avant-garde therefore ideas, whereas color only functions as superfluous artists such as Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin from ornament.5 Aristotle’s views of line and color later reappear 2 the previous generation. However, before I enter into a in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. New color pigments, discussion of color, decoration, and Matisse, it is neces- such as indigo imported from India, he explained, cause sary to consider the background of the marginalization and great paintings to become only mediocre, or simply bad. subsequent feminization of color and decoration. After the He hoped that artists would return to the ways of the section on Matisse, a final section will look at a more recent ancient Greek artists and use only the most basic colors: movement, the Pattern and Decoration (P&D) Movement, white, black, red, and yellow.6 These ideas continued to to illustrate the legacy of the artistic gendering of previous resonate in Western culture in subsequent centuries, but centuries and feminist artists’ perspectives on the gender they began to take on moral overtones. In the late Middle associations of color and decoration. Ages in Northern Europe, the monochromatic outer wings A study such as this one examines the historical shift in of triptych altarpieces were used to cover the center panel the evaluation and subsequent gendering of two tradition- during Lent; the sumptuous colors of the center panel were ally marginalized modes of expression, color and decora- thought to incite the churchgoer to abandon proper Lenten tion. For an understanding of one site of such gendering, abstinence.7 By the Renaissance the color issue revealed the use of color and decoration in the art of Henri Matisse itself in the disagreements over the relative merits of disegno is important because such a close, focused examination and colore. Design began to be viewed as primary because of can thereby problematize the underlying assumptions of the perceived intellectual component of linear construction, inequality and difference between men and women as whereas color began to be viewed as secondary because of “natural,” logical, and effective as means of expression. Art its sensual associations. is often seen as existing outside of culture and its con- When formal art academies, such as the École des Beaux- ventions, but as feminist art historians have argued, the Arts in Paris, were established at the beginning of the six- qualities associated with femininity and masculinity, and teenth century, disegno driven art became firmly entrenched the unequal power relations that conventionally follow, are in the curricula and criteria of Academic art. Drawing was reflected in, but are also codified by, art, art criticism, and heavily emphasized. This was in part because drawing was art history. Furthermore, in the history of art in general, essential to all three of the great arts of the Academy: archi- studies of color and decoration in any sense have histori- tecture, painting, and sculpture. Color was necessary only cally been neglected due to their low status. As Nicholas to one of these.8 The Academies only allowed experienced Watkins points out, “decorative painting is one of the most students access to colored paints, but even then discouraged important, but least understood, issues in late nineteenth- improvisation with color. Direct application of color to the 3 and early twentieth-century art.” Similarly, art historian canvas without any foundation or modulation was discour- 26 Gibson aged. So strong was the academic prejudice against color that out to be natural, not a function of interpretation. Further- Joshua Reynolds, founder of the Royal Academy in England, more, writing metaphorically of color as female and line as wrote that color is “weak and unworthy of regard.”9 male was used to show how males and females view the world However, despite the firm policies encoding the preemi- differently. Men were thought to see the world in a rational nence of line and the subordination of color, flare-ups in the and organized manner (linear way of seeing), whereas women debate over line versus color continued to occur for the next were thought to see the world in a state of constant emotion few centuries in the French Academy. In the seventeenth cen- and to focus only on surface appearances (coloristic way of tury, for example, the French Academy was divided between seeing). Garb describes this phenomenon saying, “[Linearity] was not only a descriptive term but an indicator of a manner of supporters of Peter Paul Rubens and Nicholas Poussin. In the 12 early nineteenth century, before the Academy began to signifi- perceiving exclusively suited to the male of the species.” cantly lose influence, a fierce competition existed between the In contrast to the fairly consistent subordination of color linearity espoused by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and the over many centuries, decoration—often defined as art that has colorism championed by Eugène Delacroix. Artists, critics, a practical purpose, as opposed to fine art, which is thought to and the public debated the merits of the two artists and their exist as an end in itself—has a much less checkered past and was revered as a mode of high art, particularly in the form of differing styles and art philosophies. Both influenced the 13 next generation of artists, some of whom would work outside mural painting, until around the mid-nineteenth century. the Academy. Delacroix became a particular favorite of the The Academy considered public decoration one of the high- est art forms whereas domestic decoration attracted strong Impressionists, and his use of color inspired their adoption of a connotations of femininity and inferiority. Under this idea, more color-driven aesthetic. domestic decoration satisfied the senses, but did not intellec- But the adoption of a color-driven aesthetic was very tually stimulate the viewer because of its identification with controversial, and not just for formal and stylistic reasons. commerce, handicrafts, tactile usefulness, and ordinary life.14 As color and line were debated, they accrued more and more On the other hand, public decoration, such as murals on pub- associations with gender. For example, in Charles Blanc’s lic buildings, encouraged intellectual contemplation. Further- popular art textbook, Grammaire historique des arts du dessin more, size matters in art, and public decoration was large-scale (1867), he explains the proper roles of color and line painting: whereas domestic decoration was almost always “small-scale The union of drawing and color is necessary for the commercial easel paintings” or practical objects such as lamps engendering of painting, just as the union between and table clothes.15 Often allegorical or based on mythological man and woman for engendering humanity, but it subjects, the best public decoration was thought to embody the is necessary that drawing retains a dominance over perfect union of the didactic and the aesthetic. Pierre Puvis de color. If it were otherwise, painting would court its Chavannes’ murals, for example, struck what the avant-garde own ruin; it would be lost by color as humanity was and the Academy alike saw as the perfect balance between lost by Eve.10 the pastoral and the cerebral. In the frenzy of modern Paris, As is apparent in Blanc’s writing, color and line in the in which people were often overcome by the “exhausting, mid- to late-nineteenth century began to take on very specific overwhelming city life,” the Third Republic did not want to gendered roles in painting that mirrored the expected roles of commission public works of art that would over stimulate its 16 fin-de-sièclemen and women. Line was not only important for citizens. the structure of a painting, but also constituted the rationality The loss of prestige for decoration was triggered by the and logic behind a painting. Color was not only difficult to increasing separation between the domestic (feminine) control; it also became the purveyor of emotions in a work of domain and the public (masculine) domain. The domestic art. There is no reason that a line cannot be emotional (lines space developed stronger associations with femininity as the curving up are often considered happier than lines curving bourgeois woman’s role at home was increasingly emphasized. down), and there is no reason that a color cannot be rational Lisa Tiersten describes the late nineteenth century interior (why shouldn’t an observed blue sky be painted blue?). But as “a separate sphere of feminine aesthetic self-expression 17 somewhere along the way, these terms began to accumulate and identity formation.” Only one public art school in Paris deeper meanings than just the concepts they describe. To admitted women in this period—the École Nationale pour gender color and line may seem extreme, but as Tamar Garb les jeunes filles. This school taught women arts such as flower 18 points out in her article “Berthe Morisot and the Feminiza- arrangement and wallpaper design. Such institutional exclu- tion of Impressionism,” in Blanc’s writing, “a formal hierarchy sion of women indicates that the decorative arts were the one is framed within an accepted hierarchy of gender…creating a art form considered appropriate for them. In fact, decorating naturalized metaphoric discourse that operates on the level of and making the home comfortable was considered a modern common sense in the late nineteenth-century parlance.”11 In Frenchwoman’s patriotic duty, and such a woman herself was other words, to gender color and line in these ways was made viewed as part of the décor. As Tiersten notes, “[women] were

Gibson 27 artists yet they themselves were objects of art.”19 Women’s stance a class-specific argument about the elite quality of magazines, for example, instructed women to select fabrics clean-lined modernism and the lower-class association with and wallpapers that “blend with their hair and skin tone.”20 overly decorated interiors. Man’s objects, by contrast, remained separate from him; such Even apparently neutral definitions betray modernist atti- co-ordination was not required since a man was typically char- tudes to decoration. Art critic Rioux de Mailloux, for another acterized as self-sufficient. example that is more moderate than Loos and Le Corbusier, French bourgeois women were also generally encouraged to wrote in 1895, “the term decorative implies a subordination, remain within their own home and gardens; leaving the house the necessity of staying within a given boundary, of orienting alone was considered improper. Women were also thought oneself in a direction, determined by the manner of being and 27 to be more susceptible to extreme emotional responses, so, the character of the object being decorated.” Previously, the according to art historian Joyce Henri Robinson, they were necessity to submit to the demands of an object in order to “advised to avoid the excessive intellectual stimulation of the decorate it was not a concern because any work of art has to marketplace and counseled to remain within the confines of submit to the demands of its media. An easel painting, after the domestic interior.”21 In a sympathetic description of the all, is just paint on a canvas. An artist cannot work outside restrictions of women, French historian Jules Michelet wrote the confines of his materials. In the nineteenth and early in 1859: “how many irritations for the single woman! She can twentieth centuries, however, French critics and art enthu- hardly ever go out in the evening; she would be taken for a siasts were focused primarily on the limitations of feminine prostitute. There are thousands of places where only men are decoration, not of easel painting and sculpture. In many ways to be seen, and if she needs to go there on business, the men the sentiments of Loos, Le Corbusier, and Rioux reflect what 22 E.H. Gombrich calls “the neurotic compulsion of high art to are amazed and laugh like fools.” An example of this resis- 28 tance to women in public shows itself in the French language divorce itself from the decorative.” with the word flâneur. A flâneur is a popular term from the But not only did high art in the sense of the Academy seek nineteenth century to indicate a dandified bourgeois man who to divorce itself from the decorative; later abstraction sought to strolls about the city at his leisure. No feminine equivalent make the same division. In the 1910’s, when the first abstract for this word existed at that time, so a woman could not be paintings were made, and the Academy was losing influence, described as strolling about the city at her leisure. Rather than abstract art set itself in opposition to decoration. Despite the flâneur,the most appropriate role for a bourgeois woman was rhetoric of contrast that critics and art historians have spun the femme-au-foyer, or the housewife. around the terms decoration and abstraction, the two types of art are inherently related. Or to put it another way, they come Furthermore, in advanced critical circles, surface decora- from the same family tree. The stylistic concerns of decorative tion did not fit with the modernist emphasis on clean lines art— such as focus on color patterns, flattened picture planes, and smooth surfaces in both architecture and interior design. and the removal of a traditional subject (such as a Classical or As Nancy Troy argues in her book Modernism and the Decora- religious story)—all aided in the development of pure abstrac- tive Arts in France, modernism “aligned against the dependent tion. Furthermore, because abstraction lacks a traditional sub- status, purported superficiality and commercial implications ject, it places more emphasis on what remains—line and color. of decoration and decorative arts.”23 In his screed against Color was often described as the “heart of the decorative,” decoration, “Ornament and Crime” (1910), Adolf Loos argues, 29 and in many ways it became the heart of abstraction as well. “The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal Much of the writing about art from the twentieth century of ornament from utilitarian objects.”24 For Loos, not only focuses on either defending or attacking abstract art, and as is decoration associated with “primitive” cultures and with Robert Herbert points out in his article “The Decorative and women; it is also a marker of a culture’s cultural evolution. the Natural in Monet’s Cathedrals,” “the defense of abstract “Not only is ornament produced by criminals,” he declares, art grew in part from theories of the decorative, but it did so “but also a crime is committed through the fact that orna- at the cost of denying the term its complexity.” 30 Apologists of ment inflicts serious injury on people’s health, on the national abstraction sought consideration for abstraction as a serious art budget and hence on cultural evolution…ornament is wasted 25 form— the most serious art form— and its associations with power and hence wasted health.” Loos turns what could decoration were thought by many to hinder that process. So, have been a strictly aesthetic issue into a moral and hygienic although abstract art and decoration are linked from the time argument. Loos’s stance may seem radical, but, in fact, his of abstract art’s genesis, defenders of abstract art seek to dis- ideas disseminated rapidly and influenced various artists tance it from the negative connotations of decoration, thereby and movements in France. One of the most notable artists reinforcing the negative connotations of decoration. who adopted Loos’s ideas was the architect and theorist Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier wrote in 1925, for example, “trash is Henri Matisse: Theoretician, Wild Beast, always abundantly decorated” and it appeals mainly to women 26 and Normal Man and the lower classes. Le Corbusier added to Loos’s moral Henri Matisse faced a wide range of criticism throughout 28 Gibson his career. From accusations that he was too theoretical to and thus potentially perceived “femininity.” Desvallières’ those that alleged he was “in no way profound,” his art often emphasis on what he characterizes as Matisse’s close rela- received criticisms that directly opposed one another.31 It is tionship to modern science is particularly of note because as if the public did not exactly know what to make of this in “Notes of a Painter” Matisse writes, “My choice of colors new sort of painter: certainly avant-garde but incongruously does not rest on any scientific theory; it is based on observa- possessing the look of “a well-groomed notary.” 32 Similarly, tion, on feeling, on the very nature of each experience.”36 Matisse’s own writing on art does not often neatly align In his introduction, Desvallières disregards Matisse’s own with what his critics were saying. His views on art, particu- description of how he works with color in favor of a more larly à propos of color and decoration, were, for the most positivistic description of his method. This direct contradic- part, very progressive, whereas his apologists often try to le- tion of Matisse’s own words is less important than Desval- gitimize his work by emphasizing the qualities they perceive lières’ need to justify Matisse’s work and writing. as distinctly grand and “masculine.” Many critics in support Perhaps influenced by Desvallières’ words on Matisse’s sci- of Matisse’s art employed tactics ranging from emphasizing entific inclinations, Charles Estienne, in a 1909 interview for the intellectual rigor of his work to proclaiming it the sym- a newspaper series on modern art, writes that he is surprised bol of French artistic excellence. However, in other cases, to find that Matisse who has “aroused the harshest criticism,” the traditional masculine/feminine binary begins to break does not explain his artistic motivations by “random conversa- down. This dissolution begins however, not so much because tion, as one might imagine,” but rather has “a thoughtful and the validity of gendered categories was being questioned, curious conception of art.”37 He also compliments Matisse but because the rising status of color and decoration estab- by saying that he sounds like Pierre Puvis de Chavannes lished them for some critics as no longer “feminine” char- because of Matisse’s emphasis on reflection and serenity.38 acteristics of painting. Matisse, unlike his critics, certainly He concludes the article by judging Matisse’s explanation was interested in and valued both color and decoration and of art to be “logical and acceptable.”39 Despite the negative did not attempt to describe them as possessing “masculine” reviews Matisse’s art had received to this point and Estienne’s attributes. However, despite the increasing acceptance of the preconceptions about the artist, by the end of the interview, bright colors and decorative features of Matisse’s art, he and Estienne deems his artistic program adequate. The logic and his apologists still found it necessary on several occasions to thoughtfulness he perceives behind Matisse’s words allow him emphasize Matisse’s identity as a “normal man,” which in- to support Matisse’s artistic endeavors. It is interesting to note dicates that “masculine” qualities were still useful in adding that Estienne’s praise of Matisse stems purely from Matisse’s legitimacy to his status as a serious artist. description of his artistic program rather than from the art One “masculine” common theme used by Matisse’s de- itself. With this in mind, for Estienne, Matisse’s rationality fenders is the accent on seriousness of purpose and the intel- and clear mindedness can justify the perceived wildness, as lect of both the artist and his production, focusing especially well as the “femininity” of his work. on Matisse’s work ethic and the strong quality of organiza- One critic, Michel Puy, even goes so far in his review tion in his painting. When tasked with the duty of defend- of the 1907 Salon d’Automne to characterize Matisse as a ing the truth of Matisse’s artistic program in the preface positive influence on younger avant-garde artists and on the to the 1908 publication of Matisse’s “Notes of a Painter,” spectators of the Salon because of his strong work ethic and George Desvallières chooses to repeatedly describe Matisse the intellectual rigor of his art. He writes, “Matisse’s merit, as a conscientious researcher. He uses a tone that is both for a moment setting aside his own work, is to have created sober and comforting, which is, as Roger Benjamin points a discipline…Matisse has declared the value of self-control, out, “quite contrary to the language of the art-market profi- he had brought together men…a little older than he, with teering and metaphysical speculation with which Matisse’s his greater experience and his methodical mind…he has 33 opponents denigrated him.” For example, Desvallières impelled them once and for all onto the path they were attempts to rationalize Matisse’s application of bright colors burning to tread.”40 Matisse’s focus and discipline, accord- by explaining, “The relationship of color which we observe ing to Puy, make him an excellent role model for younger in Persian rugs…has not been…without influence on the artists, and he describes these qualities as the best part of way [Matisse] studies the coloration of objects and be- Matisse’s endeavors. Again, it is interesting that this praise ings. This has all been acquired with the aid of a method was not based on Matisse’s artistic production; it is instead by no means removed from the findings of modern science; praise of Matisse himself, as a man. The praise of his meth- 34 perhaps it is even too little removed from them.” Desval- ods and rigor identifies qualities distinctly divorced from lières, in order to legitimize what “arouses the harshest criti- the “feminine.” Puy goes on to say that Matisse requires cism” from the French public expression, accents Matisse’s that “the spectator, in order to take in all that he had ob- 35 influences, from Persian rugs to scientific theories. By served…have at his disposal an eye just as practiced, just as portraying Matisse’s use of color as well researched and even knowledgeable as the artist himself.”41 For Puy, not only is overly scientific, he deftly eschews connotations of frivolity Matisse a responsible influence on a younger artist; he also Gibson 29 offers a challenge to the viewer. According to Puy, Matisse Like Vauxcelles, Denis and Gide may be troubled by what demands a deftly trained eye from his viewer, and to Puy’s they perceive as Matisse abandoning his own natural talents way of thinking this is something positive. The difficulty of to adhere to the strict theory of Pointillism. Nevertheless, Matisse’s art makes it worthwhile. Puy’s description of the their criticism of Matisse’s paintings as overly rational, and knowledge and challenging aspect of Matisse’s art is directly the subsequent criticism they inspired does not fit neatly the opposite of how women’s vision was understood. with the traditional masculine/feminine construction. Their Negative criticism of Matisse also focused on the intel- reaction is notable in light of the common understanding of lectual qualities of his work. But such criticism found his art historians that Matisse was anti-theoretical. Jack Flam, work to be overly theoretical. For example, in his 1905 for example, writes in his introduction to Matisse on Art: “for review of the Salon d’Automne, Maurice Denis com- many years [Matisse’s] lack of theoretical program was mis- plained of Matisse’s work: “All the qualities of the picture taken for a lack of intellectual rigor, even for a lack of artistic other than the contrast of lines and colors, everything not ambition or significance.”46 Denis and Gide’s criticism indi- determined by the painter’s reason, everything which comes cates that the colorful and decorative qualities of Matisse’s art from our instinct and from nature, finally all qualities of had gained the respect of some critics. Feeling and intuition, representation and sensibility are excluded from the work previously considered “feminine,” rather than strict rationality of art.”42 It is significant that Denis perceives as a weakness and theory, once considered “masculine,” were now admired the dependence on reason in Matisse’s painting at the cost and sought after qualities for the male artist. of artistic intuition. Based on general cultural attitudes, it would seem that Denis decries the lack of “feminine” On several occasions, Matisse sought to portray himself as qualities in Matisse’s work. Similarly, André Gide wrote rational, often placing particular emphasis on the fact that 47 in 1905 for a review in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, “The he was what he described as a “normal man.” In a 1912 canvases [Matisse] presents today look like demonstrations interview with American journalist Clara T. MacChesney, of theorems…they are a product of theories. Everything in Matisse exclaimed “Oh, do tell the American people that I them can be deduced, explained—intuition has nothing to am a normal man; that I am a devoted husband and father, do with it…Yes, this is reasonable painting, or rather, it is that I have three fine children, that I go to the theatre, ride overly rational.”43 Gide, like Denis, judges Matisse’s art to horseback, have a comfortable home, a fine garden that I be too contrived. love, flowers, etc., just like any man.”48 Matisse’s concern to Considering that the criticism of more conservative critics be seen as a typical man may correlate with the anxiety he of the same Salon determined Matisse’s art to be bizarre and felt about how his work would be received at the 1913 New incoherent—Camille Mauclair described the art as “a pot of York Armory Show. This article would be published in the colors flung in the face of the public,” deliberately invoking New York Times Magazine a week before the show closed. John Ruskin’s criticism from 1877 of Whistler’s Nocturne in It turns out that Matisse’s concerns were justified. The Black and Gold —it is striking that Denis and Gide consid- American reception of his artwork was extremely negative. 44 ered Matisse’s art too thoughtful. Their distaste may in For example, when the show moved to Chicago, the stu- part stem from Matisse’s foray into the theories of Pointil- dents at the Art Institute held a protest during which they lism in the previous few years, in paintings such as Luxe, burned a copy of Matisse’s Blue Nude from 1907.49 Perhaps Calme, et Volupté. Louis Vauxcelles—the critic who termed aware that the American audience was more conservative Matisse and his fellow artists the Fauves in fall 1905—for than the French one, he chooses to emphasize that he is example, reacted negatively to Luxe, Calme, et Volupté and not a madman, nor an effeminate man, but rather a regu- wondered “Why this incursion into the realm of the theo- lar man. His emphasis on his normality as a man indicates reticians of the dot?...my dear Matisse…your gifts are too that he believed this portrayal of himself could defend him magnificent…for you to lose yourself in experiments that from accusations of his art as something other than rigor- are sincere but go against your true nature.”45 ous and “masculine”—something “feminine.” To further Figure 1: Henri abate claims that his artistic endeavors were ridiculous or Matisse, Luxe, “revolting,” he makes it clear that, when teaching, he makes Calme, et Volpté, his pupils “draw accurately, as a student always should do 1904-05, oil on can- at the beginning. I do not encourage them to work as I do vas, Musée d’Orsay. 50 now.” Later, in a 1931 interview, Matisse articulated that In Henri Matisse: he draws a lot “with an eye for detail,” and even assigns A Retrospective, 51 by John Elderfield, himself drawing “homework.” By emphasizing that he still 131. New York: The takes time to draw and draw carefully, he draws attention to Museum of Modern the traditionally rational, mental side of his artistic practice. Art, 1992. In light of negative criticism in both France and America— 30 Gibson such as that by Joséphin Péladan, who wrote that Matisse’s both “masculine” and “feminine” here. Critics, it seems, innovations “in the employment of lines and colors, that is do not agree about the most effective way to characterize the idea of a savage or alcoholic”—it is not surprising that Matisse’s art. It seems “masculine” associations, which to Matisse seeks to emphasize his proficiency as a draftsman, a some would now seem redundant, are not a foolproof way of “masculine” quality that would legitimize his art in the eyes legitimization. of many, particularly more conservative critics. Matisse’s The third theme related to ideas of “masculinity” used by emphasis on his program of drawing for his students and advocates of Matisse is the emphasis placed on his rebel- emphasis on his own drawing ability answer what Jack liousness and inventiveness. Matisse had separated himself 52 Flam calls “the tired old question, ‘but can he draw?’” This from both the academy and Impressionism, which by that question was particularly important because drawing was time had become a better-established and more accepted historically allied with rationality and design, which were style. There were difficulties getting the French state to ac- often understood to be the province of men. Drawing stood cept the Caillebotte bequest, but by the end of the nine- in contrast with color, which was considered ephemeral and teenth century, Impressionism had lost some of its edge of emotional, often thought to be the province of women. radicalism. Matisse describes the effects of the exposure A second “masculine” theme that is emphasized by to academic art and Impressionism early in his career by Matisse’s apologists is the idea that his art is a positive rep- saying: “I have never avoided the influence of others…I resentation of France. Léon Degand wrote in 1945: “What would have considered this cowardice and a lack of sincer- happiness that France should also encompass this place in ity toward myself. I believe that the personality of the artist the world, healthy, aerated, relaxed, without languor, smil- develops and asserts itself through the struggles it has to ing and as if perfumed with a consciousness with which go through when pitted against other personalities. If the Matisse is identical, man and artist.”53 Degand indicates fight is fatal and the personality succumbs, it is a matter of that France should try to be more like Matisse and his airy, destiny.”56 Matisse describes the process of development of calming art. The positive reception Degand has for Matisse his own style in dramatic, violent terms. Because of what he is tied up with a conception of France; however Matisse’s re- describes as his courage and strong personality he was able lationship to France is not “masculinized.” Matisse is seen to to take his early influences and assimilate them to his own embody what would have been considered rather “feminine” individual style. This type of rhetoric is framed in particu- qualities of France, which is also personified in the figure of larly “masculine” and very confident terms. But, as painter Miarianne, as a female. Similarly, in a 1907 interview, poet Auguste Bréal notes, “Matisse cannot get over the fact that and critic Guillaume Apollinaire begins by positing “This he is Matisse. He can hardly believe his luck.”57 is a tentative essay about an artist in whom are combined, The conception of Matisse as a rebel who possesses both I believe, the most tender qualities of France: the strength inventiveness and genius is also a key way in which his art is 54 of her simplicity and the gentleness of her clarity.” Here legitimized by Matisse himself and by proponents of his art. Apollinaire focuses on what he sees as the connection An admirer of Matisse’s work, Marcel Sembat, wrote in 1913: between Matisse and France. This is a clever way to support “Matisse is profoundly original…the artist has gone past na- Matisse because Apollinaire is essentially indicating that ture, has dominated it, and has extracted the essential charac- to insult Matisse is to insult two admirable qualities about teristics, the tendencies, choosing and reinforcing the charac- France. Like Degand, the qualities Apollinaire emphasizes teristics with which the tendencies harmonized, rejecting and are couched in “feminine” words, such as “gentleness” and ignoring the others.”58 Here Sembat admires Matisse’s original- “tender.” Perhaps Apollinaire, as in the earlier case with ity, a distinctly “masculine” quality because women, and what Gide and Denis, did not believe he needed to “masculin- was considered “feminine,” were thought to lack what Linda ize” Matisse’s art in order to support it. On the other hand, Nochlin calls “the nugget of artistic genius” and were thought in a 1910 interview, J. Sacs writes that he admires Matisse, not to have the capability for innovation or originality.59 For ex- “because he sees [him] as one of the strongest, most consci- ample, the art critic S.C. de Soissons comments in his review of entious and intelligent exemplars of this tradition of artistic women artists in Boston: “One can only understand that wom- self-inspection, artistic didacticism and living aesthetics that en have no originality of thought.” In this view, women, and is developing uninterruptedly in French art and in no other thus the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century 55 art in the word.” The same French nationalist sentiment conception of femininity, represented the opposite of reason can be observed in J. Sacs’s article, but unlike Apollinaire and innovation. Furthermore, Sembat uses verbs like dominate, and Degand, he also characterizes the French spirit as one choose, and extract to suggest that Matisse is in complete control that is “masculine.” His concern for the strength and intel- of his art, and even of nature. With terms of such control, the ligence of French art (and Matisse’s art) codes it as distinctly picture Sembat creates of Matisse is distinctly “masculine.” The “masculine.” Matisse’s art and Frenchness are described as terms in which Matisse is discussed persist even very late into Gibson 31 his career. In 1951, in an article called “Matisse Speaks,” the Many supporters of Matisse’s work implicitly and ex- critic Tériade concludes by considering the cutout technique plicitly evoke the “masculinity” of his art and his identity of Jazz: “It was Matisse’s genius that gave these colors life. He in order to legitimize his artistic production. Although had invented a new means of plastic expression, and this will Matisse occasionally emphasizes his own masculine surely be an important date in his career.”60 “normalcy,” unlike his critics he does not characterize his art as “masculine” in his writing. The unconcern he shows for typical characterizations of color and decoration is most famously illustrated in “Notes of a Painter” from 1908: “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject mat- ter, an art which might be for every mental worker, be he business man or writer, like an appeasing influence, like a mental soother, something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue.”64 This statement has aroused a lot of notice in part because of the fact that it eschews Figure 2: Henri Matisse, The Clown, Plate I from Jazz, 1947, what was the typical understanding that art had a more twenty pochoir plates plus text, The Museum of Modern Art, noble, intellectual (“masculine”) purpose than serving as New York. In Henri Matisse: A Retrospective, by John Elderfield, something akin to a piece of furniture, merely decorative 423. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1992. and functional. Joyce Henri Robinson notes that many of Matisse’s clients were, in fact, businessmen and “mental By discussing a non-traditional mode of expression—pa- workers,” which leads to interesting implications for the per cut-outs—in terms of inventiveness and genius, Tériade gender associations of Matisse’s work. To examine Matisse’s finds a way to link this new, very decorative, colorful tech- focus on mental workers, she introduces the nervous system nique with how traditional great art is discussed. He even disorder, neurasthenia, “the result from the overcharging hyperbolically attributes a god-like power of life giving to of the nervous system in confrontation with the incessant 65 Matisse. These types of grand statements remove Matisse’s stimulation of urban existence.” This ailment was on the experimental art practices from the realm of “simply” deco- rise in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France rative art (“feminine”) and into the category of prestigious due to the over-exhaustion of the metropolitan, bourgeois high art (“masculine”). But Norma Broude points out that businessman. Having a good femme-au-foyer, or housewife, this tactic of “borrowing from the decorative and applied who would create a relaxing environment for her husband arts…[creates] yet another form of high art, a form which was thought to be an effective way to avoid the condition. by virtue of its very existence serves to reaffirm the sepa- Paintings such as those Matisse proposed as “soothing,” rate and inferior status of its source.”61 So although Tériade would have been considered an excellent element of such a may use this technique to elevate the status of Matisse’s relaxing domestic environment. Robinson writes that “the decorative art, he may simultaneously strengthen the divide domestic and pastoral realm of rest and beauty as envisioned 66 between high art and decoration. by Matisse is, ultimately, a ‘masculine dreamworld.’” Even though, according to Robinson, Matisse is the producer of Even negative criticism of Matisse was sometimes these “masculine” fantasies, he is, in a sense, fulfilling the couched in “masculine” terms. For example, by using the traditional housewife’s role of providing comfort to weary term fauves or wild beasts for artists who worked with men with his soothing images meant for the home. Perhaps bright colors, applying paint boldly even leaving portions of Matisse did not realize his statement could be interpreted canvas “unfinished,” Louis Vauxcelles created a metaphor in this way, but even aside from that, to refer to one’s art as that is distinctly “masculine.” As Gill Perry describes, “the simply pleasant and decorative would be like Pascal calling metaphor of ‘wild beasts’…carried with it connotations of 62 his Pensées light divertissements. violent masculine force.” “Masculine” terminology such as Vauxcelles’ for art that is highly colored starts to normalize According to Flam, this comment became so notorious such art by taking it out of the domain of the “feminine,” that Matisse began to regret it. So in a later interview with and categorizing it as something perhaps not desirable for Charles Estienne in 1909, when Matisse cites the passage Vauxcelles, but still considered better suited for the male from “Notes of a Painter” quoted above, he omits the por- 67 artist. Perry emphasizes this point by describing how it tion about the armchair. Despite this sort of sensitivity was particularly difficult for women to be grouped with the that Matisse had about people misunderstanding his art and Fauves, as compared to, for example, the ease with which comments, in large part, his writing on color and decoration women could be considered Impressionists.63 is non-normative for his era. In a 1940 letter to Rumanian 32 Gibson painter Théodore Pallady, Matisse maintains that “draw- He also worked on projects in non-traditional media ing is nonetheless the female and painting the male.”68 This such as large-scale paper cutouts, or découpées. In part, he assertion is in direct opposition to the traditional view that began to use this technique due to poor health, but also color embodied the female element of painting and line the because he was interested in working with pure color areas; male element. John Elderfield explains this atypical obser- he felt that “[c]utting directly into vivid color reminds vation by explaining that Matisse believed that “’drawing me of the direct carving of sculptures.”72 He also made a is female because like women and slaves, its privileged special project of the Rosary Chapel at Vence (1949-51), 69 subject is to be hidden away, ‘completely concealed’.” designing everything in the interior from the stained glass Elderfield’s explanation asserts that Matisse’s statement windows, to the murals, altar, and priests’ garments. This was not progressive, but rather he saw drawing embodying interest and attention to detail in an interior space cer- more “feminine” qualities than “line.” However, several of tainly points to a male artist unafraid to delve into both Matisse’s other statements contradict Elderfield’s interpre- “masculine” forms of decoration, such as the murals, but tation. For example, Matisse wrote in 1947: “If I have con- also into “feminine” forms of decoration, such as designing fidence in my hand that draws, it is because I was training the priests’ raiment and the altar clothes. He described the it to serve me, I never allowed it to dominate my feeling.”70 Chapel at Vence as “the culmination of a lifetime of work, And in a 1931 interview, he describes the laying on of color and the coming into flower of an enormous, sincere, and the “real work” involved in painting, whereas the drawing 73 is preparatory work to support the color.71 Unlike tradi- difficult effort.” Matisse clearly believed the Chapel to be tional academic views, Matisse does not want his drawing to the apogee of his career and something that required great overcome his feeling—the feeling is more important than effort. He thereby defends himself against any assumption the drawing. In other words, he does not want the “mascu- that the interior decoration aspects of this endeavor could line” qualities in art to overcome the “feminine.” Because be described as simple. of the importance Matisse placed in a balance between line The deeply entrenched assumptions about the sensual and color in his art, such as he did in “Notes of a Painter,” frivolity of Matisse’s art persisted well into the twentieth his focus on color seems particularly atypical, and even century. Despite Matisse’s move away from basing his exaggerated, in light of the standard academic emphasis on artistic program on the typical gendered hierarchy of art, line over color. one generation later, Clement Greenberg, a strong ad- Matisse also eschewed academic conventions by working vocate of Matisse’s art, continued to fret over its colorful in media that were not considered high art. Furthermore, and decorative aspects. Well known for his championship throughout his career, he remained consistently interested of Jackson Pollock’s Abstract Expressionism, and Post- in decorative objects such as screens, tapestries and rugs as Painterly Abstraction, Greenberg had conflicting feelings motifs in his paintings. We can see this attraction to deco- about the decorative nature of Matisse’s art. On one hand, rative objects in many of Matisse’s paintings, including, Greenberg consistently referred to Matisse as one of the for example The Moorish Screen from 1921. In this painting, crucial painters of the twentieth century and forthrightly one can observe Matisse’s detailed attention to the specific admired Matisse’s skillful application of color, simplifica- designs on the screen, the wallpaper, and the rug—so much tion of forms, and spatial flattening. On the other, Green- so that they nearly obscure the figures in the painting. berg felt it necessary to downplay the decorative nature of Matisse’s work, particularly in his 1952 essay “Feeling Figure 3: Henri 74 Matisse, The Moorish is All.” Greenberg was inspired to write this essay by Screen, 1921, oil on the 1952 major Matisse retrospective at the Museum of canvas, Philadelphia Modern Art in New York. He argues that Matisse’s art is Museum of Art. In not “pure decoration,” but rather his style presents the op- Henri Matisse: A Ret- portunity for near abstraction due to the spatial flattening rospective, by John in his paintings. This flattening has the effect of distorting 75 Elderfield, 328. New space and simplifying the forms. One can certainly see York: The Museum of these features in Matisse’s work. For example in The Artist Modern Art, 1992. and His Model (1919), a favorite of Greenberg’s, the seat of the model’s chair is tilted forward, which flattens the pic- ture plane, showing more of the woman’s body. The floor appears nearly vertical. The woman’s face is not naturalistic, but highly simplified, reduced to a few brushstrokes. Gibson 33 the “violence, alienation and loss” of the war whereas decora- tion could only express “sex, euphoria and sensual well-be- ing.”81 With their decorative motifs and bright, sensual colors, Matisse’s paintings did not fit well with what people wanted from art after the Second World War. Greenberg’s effort to “masculinize” Matisse’s art represents an attempt to align it more closely with the mode of expression seen as appropriate to the era, abstraction. The tensions inherent in Matisse’s artistic goal to achieve “a condensation of sensations,” between line and color, high and low art, masculine and feminine, lead to a variety of reactions. Even though some of Matisse’s apologists still rely on previous masculinizing strategies, such as emphasizing seriousness and Figure 4: Henri Matisse, The Painter and His Model: Studio Interior, rebelliousness, others begin to praise what were traditionally 1918-19, oil on canvas, collection Mr. and Mrs. Donald D. Marron, considered “feminine” aspects of Matisse’s art. In his writing, New York. In Henri Matisse: A Retrospective, by John Elderfield, 321. Matisse often discusses color and decoration without making New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1992. an effort to classify them as “masculine,” although on certain occasions he emphasizes his standing as “a normal man.” For Despite these stylistic features, however, Matisse’s stated Matisse, and some of his most progressive critics, color and objectives in “Notes of a Painter” do not align with abstrac- decoration had become accepted as serious modes of expres- tion because he believed that a painter who completely turned sion and thus did not need to be defended by being couched in 76 away from nature was “in error.” And while, as the philoso- “masculine” terms. However, among the following generation pher Roland Barthes pointed out, the artist’s account is not of critics Greenberg tries to defend Matisse’s art from accusa- the only valid account of a work of art, that Greenberg feels tions of triviality and decadence in a way strikingly similar to such a inclination to describe Matisse’s work as abstract is that used in ­early twentieth-century France. Through Green- indicative of his strong distaste for previous associations of berg’s writing, it is clear that using gendered terminology to Matisse’s art with “feminine” decoration, and his preference express the importance of art does not end with Matisse. for abstraction. Another example—pointed out by Norma Broude—of Conclusion: Toward an Androgynous Greenberg’s struggle to characterize Matisse’s art as anything Criticism? but decorative occurs in a section of “Feeling is All” in which As an artist exploring areas outside the traditional realm Greenberg calls Matisse’s découpées “more truly pictorial of high art, Matisse began to stretch the boundaries of what than decorative, in spite of the fact that Matisse intended 77 was considered rigorous, profound art. As this occurred, the them to serve mainly decorative ends.” This is a particularly way of writing about non-traditional modes of expression, good example of what Broude calls his “circumlocutions set such as color and decoration, began to shift. Positive critical to paper,” considering that within this one sentence Green- 78 discussions of line and color were framed, explicitly and berg contradicts himself. In his essay, “Matisse in 1966,” he implicitly, in a way that avoided or negated the “feminine” claims that Matisse is “an orchestrator of color areas before connotations of these terms. Often this positive tone was he is anything else,” which seems to privilege Matisse’s focus on color. 79 However, the word “orchestrate” implies control. achieved by attributing distinctly “masculine” characteristics Control over color allowed Matisse’s use of color to seem more to both the artist and his method of employing color and methodical. In addition, earlier in the same essay Greenberg decoration. Matisse was called industrious, theoretical, and “a wild beast,” but considered himself, above all, a seeker of emphasizes that Matisse’s “touch” is more important than his 82 color usage.80 By saying this, Greenberg accents a physical “a condensation of sensations.” Matisse’s goals as an artist aspect of Matisse’s art rather than what was perceived as an did not always align with critical opinion. This was par- emotional aspect. It is understandable that Greenberg would ticularly the case with the criticism on Matisse by Clement feel the need to downplay the “feminine” decorative aspects of Greenberg. It is a bizarre experience to compare Greenberg’s Matisse’s art. As the art critic known for his championship of Matisse and Matisse’s Matisse or the early twentieth-centu- the heroic, “masculine” Jackson Pollock and Willem de Koon- ry French view of Matisse. ing, to try to fit the “feminine” decorations of Matisse into his As is evident from the examination of Greenberg’s criti- theorizing would indeed be a challenge. Furthermore, in the cism of Matisse and from the brief history of color and period after World War II, abstraction seemed better suited decoration in the introduction, the construction of color and than decoration to address the post-war mood. As Nicholas decoration as “feminine” aspects, thus aspects of perceived Watkins suggests, people felt that abstraction could express lesser importance than “masculine” line and high art, began 34 Gibson well before and continued past the turn of the nineteenth It is this positive spirit, then, of collaboration and century and went farther than France. By way of a coda, revelation that marks and defines Schapiro’s femi- brief consideration will be given to the American Pattern nist art, while it simultaneously presents us, on the and Decoration (P&D) Movement of the 1970s. This in- art historical level, an ironic paradox. For through formal, feminist group that included artists such as Miriam this blatant, and therefore consciously politicized, Schapiro, Judy Chicago, Valerie Jaudon, and Joyce Kazloff display of the despised and decorative products of questioned the modernist alignment against the decorative the women’s handicraft tradition, Schapiro has that, in part, sprang from “Greenbergian reductivism.”83 inadvertently and unavoidably separated her works These artists confront the dominant discourses about art, from that tradition, allying them to some extent to questioning both the mythology of the exclusively male the modernist mainstream. 86 artistic “genius” and the sexist nature of art terminology. So although Schapiro’s “Femmages” engage with the tra- After all, coding certain modes of expression and capa- ditional definition of “high art” by providing the borrowed bilities as “masculine” while others are coded “feminine” decorations ample significance, they still allow the decora- reproduces “in a variety of ways the dominance of men and 84 tive to exist for its own merits. The terms “worthwhile” and the subordination of women.” “decorative” are not mutually exclusive anymore. The sexist nature of the masculine/feminine dichotomy Or are they? According to Jenny Anger, post-modernism reveals itself in the criticism of Matisse, who borrowed from still struggles to accept the “materiality and contingency” of the decorative arts without attempting to elevate their status decoration.87 These qualities of the decorative are still seen and without allowing his association with decoration to as insufficient and something that needs to be reworked. substantially lower his own. In this way, he actually propa- For example, much post-modern emphasis on the decorative gated the “separate and inferior status” of the decorative tries to eradicate its association with femininity by trying arts, even despite the progressiveness of his artistic pro- 88 85 to read ornament as “pure form.” This view is remarkably gram. By contrast, the P&D artists look at their decora- similar to the verbal machinations used by the critics of tive sources not as whimsical and in need of transformation, Matisse (most famously perhaps by Clement Greenberg). but rather as powerful, serious, and poignant in their own One of the major problems of this purposeful rejection of right. Miriam Schapiro, for example, in her “Femmages,” the “feminine” characterization of decoration, according such as Anonymous Was a Woman (1977), a suite of eight to Anger, is that the resulting “masculinized” ornament etchings based on doilies made by anonymous women, col- necessarily excludes much of the art created by women.89 laborates positively with other women and brings decorative Both Anger and Broude would agree that the only way for art into the realm of “high art.” decorative art to be embraced is for critical language and assumptions to be reformed to allow for a sort of “androgy- nous harmony” between decoration and high art, color and line to emerge.90 Imagine if such an androgyny were extended to all realms of language. Phrases such as “you’re such a girl” or “you throw like a girl” would be meaningless.

1 See Tamar Garb, “Berthe Morisot and the Feminizing of Impressionism,” in Critical Readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, ed. Mary Tompkins Lewis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007) for a detailed discussion of the perceived appropriateness of Impressionism as a mode of expression for a woman artist, Berthe Morisot. See also Gill Perry, Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde: Modernism Figure 5. Miriam Schapiro, Anonymous Was a Woman, 1977, etching, and ‘Feminine’ Art, 1900 to the Late 1920s (New York: Manches- University of California, San Diego. In Feminism and Art History: ter University Press, 1995) for a study of a female artist, Emilie Questioning the Litany, edited by Norma Broude and Mary D. Gar- Charmy, working in what was seen as an inappropriate mode of rard, 322. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. expression for a woman, Fauvism. 2 Case studies of the legitimization through associations with By collaborating with other women, she questions the masculinity on the part of Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin concept of “high art” as a category reserved for individual, and their apologists were included with that of Matisse as part male “geniuses.” Schapiro also complicates the boundaries of the author’s senior honors thesis. between “high art” and decorative art, as Norma Broude ex- 3 Nicholas Watkins, “The Genesis of a Decorative Aesthetic,” plains in her article “Miriam Schapiro and ‘Femmage’”: in Beyond the Easel: Decorative Paintings by Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel, and Denis 1890-1930, ed. Gloria Groom (New Haven Gibson 35 and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 2. 31 Jack Flam, Matisse: The Man and His Art, 1869-1918(Ithaca: 4 John Gage, Color in Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, Cornell University Press, 1986), 19. 2006), 215. 32 Jack Flam, ed., Matisse on Art (Berkeley: University of Califor- 5 David Batchelor, Chromophobia (London: Reaktion Books, nia Press, 1995), 99. 2000), 29. 33 Roger Benjamin, Matisse’s “Notes of a Painter”: Criticism, Theory, 6 Gage, Color in Art, 200. and Context, 1891-1908 (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987), 158. 7 Ibid., 201. 34 Ibid. 8 Garb, “Berthe Morisot,” 196. 35 Flam, Matisse on Art, 53. 9 Batchelor, Chromophobia, 30. 36 Henri Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” in Theories of Modern Art, 10 Charles Blanc, “The Grammar of Painting and Engraving,” in ed. Herschel Browning Chipp, Peter Howard Selz, and Joshua Nineteenth-Century Theories of Art, ed. Joshua C. Taylor (Berke- Charles Taylor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 620. 135. 11 Garb, “Berthe Morisot,” 196. 37 Flam, Matisse On Art, 53. 12 Ibid. 38 Ibid., 55. 13 “Decorative Art,” in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, 39 Ibid. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscrib- er/article/opr/t4/e567 (accessed March 9, 2011). 40 Benjamin, Matisse’s “Notes of a Painter,” 125. 14 Nancy Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France: Art 41 Ibid., 124. Nouveau to Le Corbusier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 42 Ibid., 94. 1991), 2-3. 43 Ibid., 95. 15 Watkins, “The Genesis of a Decorative Aesthetic,” 3. 44 Flam, Matisse: The Man and His Art, 140. 16 See Joyce Henri Robinson, “Honey, I’m Home,” in Not at Home: 45 Ibid., 121. The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture, ed. Christopher Reed (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996), 98, 46 Flam, Matisse on Art, 21. for more information on effects of modernity and neurasthenia 47 Ibid., 69. on public and private decoration. 48 Ibid. 17 Lisa Tiersten, “The Chic Interior and the Feminine Modern,” in Not at Home the Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and 49 Ibid., 64. Architecture, ed. Christopher Reed (New York: Thames and 50 Ibid., 67. Hudson, 1996), 19. 51 Ibid., 102. 18 Elizabeth Childs, “Painting Privileged Domesticity: Morisot 52 Ibid., 65. and Cassatt” (lecture, French Art and Politics in the Belle Epoque, St. Louis, MO, February 21, 2011). 53 Ibid., 165. 19 Tiersten, “The Chic Interior,” 31. 54 Ibid., 27. 20 Ibid., 32. 55 Ibid, 59. 21 Robinson, “Honey, I’m Home,” 101. 56 Ibid., 29. 22 Tamar Garb, “Gender and Representation,” in Modernity and 57 Ibid., 19. Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Fran- 58 Benjamin, Matisse’s “Notes of a Painter,” 360. cis Frascina (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 236. 59 See Linda Nochlin, “Why Have There Been No Great Women 23 Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts, 2. Artists?” in Women, Creativity, and the Arts: Critical and 24 Adolf Loos, “Ornament and Crime,” in The Theory of Decorative Autobiographical Perspectives, ed. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona Art: An Anthology of European and American Writings, 1750- and Lucinda Ebersole (New York: The Continuum Publishing 1940, ed. Isabelle Frank (New Haven: Yale University Press, Company, 1995). 2000), 289. 60 Ibid., 206. 25 Ibid., 291. 61 Norma Broude, “Miriam Schapiro and ‘Femmage’: Reflections 26 Briony Fer, “Luxury, Utility, and the Decorative,” in Realism, on the Conflict Between Decoration and Abstraction in 20th Rationalism, and Surrealism: Art Between the Wars, ed. by Briony Century Art,” in Feminism and Art History, ed. Norma Broude Fer, et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 155. and Mary D. Garrard (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 320. 27 Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts, 2. 62 Perry, Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde, 55. 28 Watkins, “The Genesis of a Decorative Aesthetic,” 21. 63 Ibid., 39-82. 29 Robert Herbert. “The Decorative and the Natural in Monet’s 64 Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” 135. Cathedrals,” in Aspects of Monet, ed. John Rewald and Frances 65 Robinson, “Honey, I’m Home,” 100. Weitzenhoffer (New York: Abrams, 1984), 164. 66 Ibid., 112. 30 Ibid., 162. 36 Gibson 67 Flam, Matisse on Art, 53. Belle Époque seminar at Washington University in St. Louis, 68 Ibid., 181. St. Louis, MO, February 21, 2011. 69 Ibid., 296. “Decorative Art.” In The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Oxford Art Online. Accessed March 9, 2011. http://www. 70 Ibid., 172. oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t4/e567. 71 Ibid., 102-103. Fer, Briony. “Luxury, Utility, and the Decorative.” In Realism, 72 John Klein, “Inventing Mediterranean Harmony in Matisse’s Rationalism, and Surrealism: Art Between the Wars, edited by Paper Cut-Outs,” in Modern Art and the Idea of the Mediter- Briony Fer, David Batchelor, and Paul Wood, 149-162. New ranean, ed. Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski (Toronto: University of Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Toronto Press, 2007), 157. Flam, Jack, ed., Matisse on Art. Berkeley: University of California 73 Flam, Matisse on Art, 197. Press, 1955. 74 Clement Greenberg, Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 3, ed. ------. Matisse: The Man and His Art, 1869-1918.Ithaca: Cornell John O’Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1986), 99-112. University Press, 1986. 75 Ibid., 100. Gage, John. Color in Art. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2006. 76 Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” 136. Garb, Tamar. “Berthe Morisot and the Feminizing of Impression- ism.” In Critical Readings in Impressionism and Post-Impres- 77 Broude, “Miriam Schapiro and ‘Femmage,’” 320. sionism, edited by Mary Tompkins Lewis, 191-201. Berkeley: 78 Ibid. University of California Press, 2007. 79 Clement Greenberg, Collected Essays and Criticism, vol. 4, ed. ------. “Gender and Representation.” In Modernity and Mod- John O’Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1986), 223. ernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Francis Frascina, 219-289. New Haven: Yale University 80 Ibid., 221. Press, 1993. 81 Watkins, “The Genesis of a Decorative Aesthetic,” 24. Greenberg, Clement. Collected Essays and Criticism. Vol. 3. Edited 82 Matisse, “Notes of a Painter,” 132. by John O’Brian. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1986. 83 Broude, “Miriam Schapiro and ‘Femmage,’” 315. ------. Collected Essays and Criticism. Vol. 4. Edited by John 84 Griselda Pollock, “Feminism and Modernism,” in Framing O’Brian. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1986. Feminism, ed. Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock (New York: Herbert, Robert. “The Decorative and the Natural in Monet’s Pandora Press, 1987), 87. Cathedrals.” In Aspects of Monet, edited by John Rewald and 85 Broude, “Miriam Schapiro and ‘Femmage,’” 320. Frances Weitzenhoffer, 160-179. New York: Abrams, 1984. 86 Ibid., 322. Klein, John. “Inventing Mediterranean Harmony in Matisse’s Paper Cut-Outs.” In Modern Art and the Idea of the Mediterra- 87 Jenny Anger, Paul Klee and the Decorative in Modern Art (Cam- nean, edited by Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski, 146-160. Toronto: bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 200. University of Toronto Press, 2007. 88 Ibid., 4. Loos, Adolf. “Ornament and Crime.” In The Theory of Decorative 89 Ibid. Art: An Anthology of European and American Writings, 1750- 1940, edited by Isabelle Frank, 288-294. New Haven: Yale 90 Broude, “Miriam Schapiro and ‘Femmage,’” 325. University Press, 2000. Matisse, Henri. “Notes of a Painter.” In Theories of Modern Art, edited by Herschel Browning Chipp, Peter Howard Selz, Bibliography and Joshua Charles Taylor, 130-137. Berkeley: University of Anger, Jenny. Paul Klee and the Decorative in Modern Art. Cam- California Press, 1968. bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Art- Batchelor, David. Chromophobia. London: Reaktion Books, 2000. ists?” In Women, Creativity, and the Arts: Critical and Autobio- graphical Perspectives, edited by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona Benjamin, Roger. Matisse’s “Notes of a Painter”: Criticism, Theory, and Lucinda Ebersole, 42-69. New York: The Continuum and Context, 1891-1908. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, Publishing Company, 1995. 1987. Perry, Gill. Women Artists and the Parisian Avant-Garde: Modern- Blanc, Charles. “The Grammar of Painting and Engraving.” In ism and ‘Feminine’ Art, 1900 to the Late 1920s. New York: Nineteenth-Century Theories of Art, edited by Joshua C. Taylor, Manchester University Press, 1995. 467-480. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987. Pollock, Griselda. “Feminism and Modernism.” In Framing Femi- nism, edited by Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, 79-122. Broude, Norma. “Miriam Schapiro and ‘Femmage’: Reflections New York: Pandora Press, 1987. on the Conflict Between Decoration and Abstraction in 20th Century Art.” In Feminism and Art History, edited by Norma Robinson, Joyce Henri. “Honey, I’m Home.” In Not at Home: Broude and Mary D. Garrard, 315-329. New York: Harper & The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Architecture, Row, 1982. edited by Christopher Reed, 98-112. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996. Childs, Elizabeth. “Painting Privileged Domesticity: Morisot and Cassatt.” Lecture given in French Art and Politics in the Tiersten, Lisa. “The Chic Interior and the Feminine Modern.” In Not at Home: The Suppression of Domesticity in Modern Art and Gibson 37 Architecture, edited by Christopher Reed, 18-32. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996. Troy, Nancy. Modernism and Decorative Arts in France: Art Nouveau to Le Corbusier. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Watkins, Nicholas. “The Genesis of a Decorative Aesthetic.” In Beyond the Easel: Decorative Paintings by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis and Roussel, 1890-1930, edited by Gloria Groom, 1-28. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

38 Gibson A Coincidental Cup of Kenyan Coffee: SNCC and Malcolm X Recast the Struggle in Nairobi Howie Rudnick

Abstract: Challenging the traditional periodization of internationalism within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), this article examines a fateful meeting between Malcolm X, John Lewis, and Donald Harris in a Kenyan courtyard café, and the role it played in altering the way SNCC’s membership came to conceive of the scope of its struggle. On the heels of SNCC’s first official delegation to Africa in September of 1964, during which eleven members of the organization spent three weeks in Guinea as the guests of President Sékou Touré, John Lewis and Donald Harris traveled for seven weeks across the African continent, forging relationships with African political figures, freedom fighters, radical American expatriates, and African lay people, sowing the seeds of collaboration and laying the foundations for SNCC’s future trips to the continent. While their plane was grounded in Nairobi, the pair met Malcolm X, and the meeting proved a watershed moment in the political and philosophical trajectory of the organization. The trip marked the beginning of an important, though short-lived effort between Malcolm and SNCC to collaborate, and even after the budding relationship was severed with Malcolm’s assassination, his internationalist message continued to play out in the life of the organization. While historians have largely overlooked the significance of the coincidental encounter, this study seeks to demonstrate the fundamental role it played in inciting among SNCC’s membership dramatically increased interest and sustained action on the international front for years to come.

s John Lewis and Donald Harris’ plane made Africa that September and had been traveling together for its way southeast down the African continent, the two weeks since the rest of the group had returned to the plane was forced to land in Kenya. The the States. Malcolm reported that he had recently been in airline paid for the pair of young activists from Cairo for the Non-Allied Nations Conference. There he the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had spoken about his new organization, the Organization Ato spend three days in Nairobi at the New Stanley Hotel, of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) and how he hoped to the most glamorous in the city, while the plane’s mechani- bring the persecution of black Americans onto the inter- cal issues were resolved. It was mid-October 1964, and as national stage. Modeled after the pan-African Organiza- they sat sipping their coffee in the hotel café on their first tion of African Unity, the OAAU, religiously unaffiliated, afternoon in Nairobi, none other than Malcolm X ap- sought to unite black Americans and bring the United peared.1 “‘Hello,’ he offered along with a small smile, ‘what States government to the General Assembly of the U.N. are you doing here?’” Lewis and Harris were stunned. They and hold it accountable for violating the Human Rights were well aware that Malcolm was in Africa, but had no Charter in its persecution of black Americans. He had re- idea they were again traveling right on his heels. Only a turned to Africa for a second time that year to rally political few days before the SNCC duo arrived in Ghana, he had support amongst the continent’s leaders for his plan and to departed. He was in the midst of his second African tour “raise the levels of awareness and involvement in Africa.”3 since breaking with the Nation of Islam in March earlier The coincidental meeting, an ocean away from Malcolm’s that year, and had made a remarkable impression on the base in Harlem and SNCC’s central office in Atlanta, many Africans whom he had met. Malcolm took a seat at left an indelible imprint on SNCC and helped to fuel the their table and the three men began to talk. He explained organization’s philosophical shift towards internationalism. that he had just flown in from Tanzania with Jomo Ke- The encounter marked the beginning of a concerted though 2 nyatta, African revolutionary and President of Kenya. They short-lived effort between Malcolm and SNCC to collabo- began to describe to one another what had brought them rate, a moment ripe with possibility. Most importantly, the thousands of miles from home to this Kenyan courtyard chance cup of coffee awakened Lewis, Harris, and many of café. Lewis and Harris explained to Malcolm that they had the organization’s staffers to the broader context of SNCC’s been among a group of eleven members of SNCC to travel work and elucidated the tremendous inspiration and power to Guinea on the organization’s first official delegation to that lay in understanding their struggle as part of a global Rudnick 39 effort to liberate people of color all over the world. anced understanding of SNCC’s philosophical and political Historians have largely overlooked the significance of development. the coincidental encounter between these three men in In 1981, Clayborne Carson published In Struggle: October 1964. Indeed it occurred at a moment in time SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, which would in which SNCC was seriously reevaluating its priorities, henceforth be recognized by scholars in the field as the direction, and philosophy and Malcolm had been doing preeminent history of the organization.6 Written as an much of the same.4 Malcolm had come to realize that he institutional and intellectual history, Carson’s work is one needed the collaboration and support of the movement, of prodigious research and captivating writing. The book and SNCC aligned most closely to his evolved philosophy. brilliantly traces SNCC’s trajectory from its seeds in the The encounter provided Lewis and Harris an opportunity sit-in movement of 1960 to its disintegration as the decade to look through Malcolm’s evolved philosophical lens and of struggle came to a close. Incorporating discussion of reinforced their growing conviction that their struggle SNCC’s relationship with other civil rights organizations, stretched far beyond the American South. The encounter if at times lacking a comprehensive framing that stretches prompted SNCC to expand the scope of its struggle and beyond the organization, Carson’s is a work of historical see its work within a broader internationalist context. The mastery. And yet, in its largely domestic and institutional trip was not the first experience SNCC would have with focus, it fails to fully account for the internationalism that internationalism, and it would certainly not be the last, but played an important part in motivating and directing many it was crucial in that it served as a philosophical awaken- of SNCC’s members. ing, nourishing the notion in the minds of many in SNCC’s When SNCC’s internationalism has been discussed in ranks that their organizing work was part of something the literature, it has been largely within the context of a much bigger, a struggle for the liberation of black people strict periodization, in which nearly everything that trans- across the globe. When Lewis and Harris returned to At- pired within the organization before 1966 was domestic lanta, SNCC would begin to take substantive steps towards in orientation, and it was not until the latter years of the collaborating with Malcolm X and pursuing their contacts organization’s work that international events and ideolo- in Africa, and in doing so continue to reinforce the impor- gies came to shape SNCC’s program. Carson’s founda- tance of expanding the scope of the struggle. tional study of the organization adopts this periodization The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s and outlook and indeed, most scholars that have written 1964 delegation to Africa is barely discussed in historical about SNCC have followed suit. The traditional narra- literature on SNCC and the American Civil Rights Move- tive cites 1965 as a dividing point within the movement, ment.5 Scholarly writing about the black rights struggle when SNCC stopped seeking change through existing has undoubtedly evolved tremendously since the late political structures and, with calls of black power, sought 1960s and early 1970s, as historians have moved beyond a complete reconstruction of the American racial order. the traditional focus on national figures and legislative Carson’s account suggests that in 1966 and 1967, SNCC’s battles to a more dynamic investigation of the movement. organizational politics evolved substantially, at which point New histories have sought to tease out the complex mix of it was difficult to recognize the SNCC of the early 1960s in national and grass roots efforts that shook the American the band of radicals that SNCC had become. His account racial status quo and fought for an improved quality of life discusses SNCC’s international engagement in 1966 and and citizenship for black Americans. Unlike many areas of 1967 as largely independent from the organization’s earlier historical inquiry for which scholarly engagement waxes domestic orientation.7 and wanes considerably, the black freedom movement has During his discussion of the 1964 delegation Carson ex- drawn sustained interest from the historical community for plains, “The African tour contributed to SNCC’s increasing the last four decades, perhaps in part because the Ameri- awareness of the international implications of its struggle,” can public continues to be fascinated by the people, places, but quickly qualifies this by adding that “pressing internal and events of the era that reshaped the American racial problems prevented the organization from following up at landscape. And yet, despite garnering sustained historical once on its contacts in Africa.”8 Furthermore, Carson im- inquiry from an increasing number of angles, the tendency plies that the trip had no tangible results, pointing out that to study the movement within a domestic vacuum persists. an office of international affairs was not established until The complex intersections between liberation struggles on later SNCC visits to Africa by the likes of Robert Moses, both sides of the Atlantic during the height of the move- James Forman, and others.9 ment have been largely neglected in the standard historical Carson’s brief treatment of the trip deemphasizes its narrative. The tendency to ignore international linkages has pivotal role in prompting SNCC’s members to develop prevented historians from developing a complete and nu- an internationalist understanding of their struggle, and 40 Rudnick downplays the efforts of the SNCC staffers who sought official guests of Guinean President Sékou Touré, returned to expand SNCC’s international profile as a result of the to the States, and Lewis and Harris began their extended trip. Lost entirely in Carson’s narrative is the development journey around the African continent. Harris had been the of an African Project, spearheaded by Guinea delegate only one among the group who had been to Africa before Dona Richards, which was designed to sustain interna- that fall. He had spent time in 1961 as a volunteer in what tional interest across SNCC’s projects.10 While in Carson’s at the time was Northern Rhodesia with an organization account, there is a brief mention of the instances in which called Operation Crossroads Africa. The people of North- SNCC and Malcolm came together in the months before ern Rhodesia had at long last won their independence from his death, Carson neglects to explain the broad impact that Great Britain, and had made plans for an epic celebration the trip had on the way SNCC staffers came to understand that October in Lusaka, the capital of the nation that was Malcolm’s ideas and the extent to which the trip propelled to be reborn as Zambia. Harris wanted desperately to join SNCC’s internationalism. He implicitly suggests that it was in the festivities; “to get that close…and pass up an op- Malcolm who drove the developing relationship, describ- portunity to be at the independence ceremony” would be ing the encounters as “attempts by Malcolm to forge links “absolute insanity.”13 Together with Lewis, he had managed with SNCC.”11 In fact, within SNCC, the trip initiated a to procure five hundred dollars from the American Com- markedly increased interest in Malcolm and his philoso- mittee on Africa to stay on the continent until mid-Novem- phy, and generated serious interest in collaborating with ber for seven weeks of exploration—a trip that took them him. Far from marking a sharp break in the organization, to Liberia, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Egypt. 1965 marked the year in which SNCC members began to The five hundred dollars would only go so far, but Lewis collaborate with Malcolm X, discovering ways to integrate and Harris were determined to make numerous contacts a broader international outlook into their organization’s and were convinced that with the help of the people they political philosophy and programmatic agenda. SNCC’s were hoping to meet along the way, they could man- international engagement in 1965, emerged as a result of its age.14 Extending the trip would allow them to stay for the 1964 trip to Africa and meeting with Malcolm X, and laid celebration, but more importantly for SNCC, they hoped it the foundation for SNCC’s pronounced internationalism in would help to “cement the relation between the liberation 1966 and 1967. Indeed, the pair’s encounter with Malcolm movement of Africa and the Civil Rights struggle” and al- was a watershed moment in the political and philosophical low them to secure as many contacts as they could in Africa trajectory of the organization and changed the way many that could be followed up on upon their return.15 While within SNCC came to understand the struggle. While the the official delegation to Guinea had a tremendous per- meeting between Malcolm, Lewis, and Harris was fun- sonal impact on the group, the most salient philosophical damentally important, philosophies are ever evolving and impact of the trip on the organization, the expansion of the are seldom sipped in a single cup of coffee. The meeting struggles’ scope, would materialize more concretely once was meaningful because of the circumstances and context the rest of the group flew home and Lewis and Harris were within which it occurred. For more than seven weeks Lewis the only two SNCC staffers left on the continent. and Harris traveled across the continent, meeting a broad The trip did not begin quite as Lewis and Harris had spectrum of people and engaging a wide range of organiza- planned. The Air Guinea flight that was supposed to take tions in their quest to bridge the gap between the struggles them to Ghana was canceled, so instead they made ar- on each side of the Atlantic and develop personal contacts rangements to spend two days in Monrovia, Liberia. They in pursuit of that goal. had no particular plans or anyone to call, so they proceeded first to the United States Information Service office to sort Swept Up in the Spirit of Revolution out logistical issues for the rest of the trip and then to the “Our group stay in Guinea was basically a vacation,” John Liberian Information Service office. They introduced them- Lewis would recall. “It was once the others left to return selves and explained why they had come, but no one at the to America and Don and I moved on deeper into Africa office seemed to care very much. During their short visit in that the real substance of our journey began. Now, instead the nation’s capital they made a radio recording for all four of being a large group wined and dined by dignitaries, we of the local radio stations, arranged to be interviewed by were two young black men, Americans, encountering and the two major newspapers, the Liberian Star and Liberian meeting and conversing with young people like ourselves, Age, and wandered the streets talking to people to learn young men and women swept up in the spirit of revolution, more about the country. They left Liberia convinced they of change.”12 had made all the contacts there were to be made, but that On 2 October the rest of the delegation, who together little would come of them. They sensed that the country on with Lewis and Harris had spent the last three weeks as the the whole was politically stagnant and as far as they could Rudnick 41 see there were “no political clubs or groups right or left of Kwame Nkrumah, and his anti-imperialist pan-African even the least significance.”16 vision. Lewis and Harris had the opportunity to meet with and were greeted warmly by many of the revolution- Ghana: Activist Nation aries who frequented the Bureau of African Affairs and On 7 October, the pair flew from Monrovia to Accra, Pan Africanist Congress offices, who could not help but Ghana, and their outlook brightened. Unlike Liberia, Gha- engage them in long conversations every time they came na, in their view, was a nation of activists.17 One of Harris’ through. The Bureau of African Affairs would prove to relatives, a Ghanaian businessman named Gus Kwabi, who be an important contact for Lewis and Harris, not only had studied in the United States and was well connected because the people there showed great interest in develop- in the Ghanaian government, met them at the airport and ing a relationship with SNCC, but also because it provided was instrumental in helping them to establish their first them with further contacts throughout Africa—national- contacts. Ghana had won its independence in 1957, the first ist groups and political parties they hoped to contact. The in a wave of newly independent nations in sub-Saharan Bureau published a journal that was circulated to many Africa. In the years since liberation, a vibrant black Ameri- of the important cities in Africa and had for some time can expatriate community had developed, and Lewis and wanted to include articles about the rights struggle in the Harris would come to meet some of its most influential U.S. but never had the material; they hoped SNCC could 24 members.18 The first they came across was Dr. Robert E. fill the void. Lee, a dentist whom they described as a “militant, intellec- Unlike their experience in Liberia, in Ghana, the pair tual, and activist.”19 Through Dr. Lee they were introduced had an opportunity to get away from the capital city. They to Shirley Graham Du Bois, wife of late renowned black toured Tema, the newly built harbor for which the Ghana- intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois and prominent member of the ian government had high expectations to become the coun- expatriate community. The couple had come to Ghana in try’s new shipping hub, and traveled to Akosombo, site of 1961, and at the time they met her, Shirley Graham was the Volta River Dam, the focal point of a key government 25 involved in establishing a television network in Ghana. project that was to provide power to the greater region. Lewis and Harris sat with Lee and Du Bois and discussed Once they returned to Accra, they were even allowed to at length trying to build a bridge between the Civil Rights tour the National Archives and government headquarters, Movement stateside and the newly independent African an opportunity not afforded to most visitors. nations. Both Lee and Du Bois were members of the newly The day before Lewis and Harris were to leave Accra, formed Afro-American Information Bureau (AIB), which they met Julian Mayfield, who had just returned from the had been created to keep Ghanaians “informed about what Non-Allied Nations Conference in Cairo. Lewis and Har- was going on in the States.”20 Du Bois pledged to help ris’ timing had not been perfect. Regrettably, they would Lewis and Harris in any way she could. recall, many of the key government figures, journalists, Next, Lewis and Harris were introduced to Leslie Lacy, and exiled freedom fighters in Ghana had been in Cairo another expatriate who was studying and doing research at for the conference. Nonetheless, thanks to the contacts the University.21 Lacy took Lewis and Harris around the they had made, they were fortunate enough to get in touch 26 Legon Campus of the University of Ghana and introduced with some of these people when they returned. Like Du them to a range of people in and outside the University. Bois, Mayfield was a prominent member of the expatriate One of those people was Dr. Frank Irvine, a California na- community. A writer, actor, and political activist, Mayfield tive who had been active in the Bay Area friends of SNCC, had challenged the insular and integrationist stance which one of a number of such “friends of SNCC” groups around prevailed in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and the country that helped to garner financial support for after being exiled from the United States had found in the organization. Like Du Bois, he offered to help inform Ghana a “forum for [his] criticism of American racism and students at the University about the American civil rights empire” and a home for his “quest for a radical alternative to 27 struggle.22 the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.” When they met him, Lewis and Harris recalled that they spent a great deal of Mayfield was writing for a number of Ghanaian newspa- 28 their time in Accra at the offices of the Bureau of African pers and working in President Nkrumah’s office. Mayfield Affairs and Pan Africanist Congress, where “militants… spoke with the pair at length, and they would later recall and nationalists…[many of whom were] exiles from still that he had been quite impressed with why they had come. dependent countries and South Africa built, began, sus- He exclaimed that “this kind of thing should have been tained and continued revolutions against colonial, imperial done long ago” and as the person who had spearheaded and racists powers.”23 Accra had become a hub for Afri- the AIB, promised that if they regularly updated him can revolutionaries, who felt drawn to Ghana’s president, on SNCC’s activities stateside, he would make sure the 42 Rudnick information made its way into the Ghanaian papers and in Africa, he and Harris were “dismissed as mainstream, onto Ghanaian radio. They agreed with Mayfield that it and it was Malcolm who was embraced.”34 As Lewis under- was crucially important to keep “the issue in front of the stood it, the Africans they met were “extremely politically Ghanaian people” as well as Americans “all the time,” and astute” and “for the most part, true revolutionaries, far more to continue to cultivate the Ghanaian good will towards the radical than we in SNCC.” That’s why he had “struck such Civil Rights Movement. For all the disappointment that a chord with them.”35 It quickly was evident to Lewis and Atlantic City had brought SNCC, along with the other Harris that Malcolm was the “main criteria” through which organizing efforts of the Freedom Summer, it had drawn Africans had come to understand Black Americans and SNCC’s efforts into the public eye and garnered far more their politics.36 In Ghana, they were grilled on a range of attention from the American public than any of SNCC’s international issues, forced to articulate where SNCC stood previous organizing work. The summer had taught them on Cuba, Vietnam, the Congo, communist China, and the the importance of publicity. Lewis and Harris made plans United Nations. Only by detailing SNCC’s involvement in to send regular press releases and photographs to Mayfield the civil rights struggle and insisting that they had come to when they returned to the States.29 Lewis and Harris’ time bridge the gap between Africa and the States were Lewis in Ghana had been far more productive then their Liberian and Harris able to gain a reception and garner respect and visit. If only for a brief time, they had tapped into a vibrant interest among the many Africans they encountered. As the community of African and African-American expatriates pair left Ghana and flew south, they were filled with antici- who had shown a marked interest in their African mis- pation and excitement; they were about to see first hand the sion and in a sustained relationship with SNCC. Through fulfillment of years of revolutionary struggle in Northern the widely publicized Freedom Summer and challenge in Rhodesia. The celebration promised to be extraordinary. But Atlantic City, SNCC had rapidly emerged as a key voice they would have to wait a few days longer. within the civil rights struggle in the States. But in Ghana, they quickly became aware that it was another voice that Shared Ground on Foreign Soil: Lewis was echoing across Africa, a voice that they would hear first and Harris Meet Malcolm X in Nairobi hand in a few days time. Lewis and Harris had not intended on stopping in Nai- While Lewis and Harris did not meet Malcolm in person robi, but their plane was grounded, and if they had to wait until Nairobi, it was in Ghana where they first became a few days before joining in the Zambian independence aware of Malcolm X’s pervasive influence on the way celebrations, the New Stanley Hotel proved a fateful place Africans understood the American civil rights struggle. to do so. The British had built the hotel at the turn of the Between his two extended African tours in 1964, Malcolm twentieth century to serve the colonial elite, and it was in had spent a substantial amount of time in Ghana, and his the hotel’s lavish courtyard café that the pair shared coffee understanding and articulation of the black rights struggle with Malcolm. in the States had resonated with nearly everyone he had The conversation that had begun over a cup of coffee met. In many ways, the strong reception Malcolm and his stretched through the evening and continued the following ideas received initially led many on the continent to view day. Lewis and Harris discussed their impressions of Africa Lewis and Harris with “skepticism and distrust.”30 On with Malcolm and “compared notes,” having been to a few one of their first few days in Accra someone approached of the same places and having met a number of the same them and bluntly offered, “Look, you guys might be really people.37 Malcolm explained to them that he had visited doing something—I don’t know, but if you are to the right eleven African countries, met with many heads of state of Malcolm, you might as well start packing right now and addressed the parliaments of most of the countries. He ‘cause no one’ll listen to you.”31 In fact, they found that this was worn down, but he intended to visit five more African fascination with Malcolm was not unique to Ghana and nations before he returned to the States. Malcolm made the “pattern repeated itself in every country” they visited.32 it clear to them that he had not yet garnered the kind of They were continually confronted with questions about support among the American Civil Rights Movement that Malcolm and where they and SNCC stood in relation to he hoped he would in his attempt to use the OAAU to hold his positions. They were amazed how well received Mal- the United States government accountable for systematical- colm’s ideas were in Africa—his impact had been “just ly subjugating their people. Lewis and Harris later recalled fantastic.” that the question at the time was whether “the civil rights Lewis later explained that in the United States, SNCC voices” in the States would support him, and it “ultimately was considered by mainstream society to be a radical was evident that support…was not forthcoming.” They organization, and Malcolm X was categorized even further 33 would reflect in their report to SNCC in December that along the spectrum as an “extremist, a revolutionary.” But “the American black community” was not in a position “to Rudnick 43 attempt such a move without looking like complete asses with The Nation of Islam and four days later called a press and embarrassing our most valuable allies.”38 conference at the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York City to Malcolm expressed to them that he thought what they explain the break and chart a new path for himself and the were doing was critically important and that making ties black rights struggle as a whole. It was under Elijah Muham- with Africa was a “crucial aspect of the human rights mad’s tutelage that Malcolm had developed and come to struggle that the American civil rights groups had too long master the articulation of his religious and political ideology. neglected.”39 Emphasizing “how happy he was to see SNCC The Nation had served as his power base, his inspiration, and reaching out like this to Africa,” he stressed that “more the venue through which he came to understand and trans- black people in America needed to travel and see and learn mit his philosophy. For the better part of the last decade, he what was happening with blacks outside our country, not had been fiercely committed to spreading the word of the just in Africa, but all over the world.”40 It was clear to them honorable Elijah Muhammad and expanding The Nation’s that “Africa was doing for him the same thing it was doing reach. In December 1963, Malcolm and Muhammad’s close for [them]—providing a frame of reference that was both relationship began to unravel and by March they personally 45 broadening and refreshing.”41 Lewis later recalled, “Think- and philosophically had arrived at a breaking point. “I felt ing globally. That was essentially the reason Don and I had as though something in nature had failed, like the sun, or the 46 made this trip. To see Malcolm X so swept up with such stars,” Malcolm recalled in his autobiography. enthusiasm was inspiring.”42 With his formal announcement of the break, Malcolm Malcolm noted what their experience had already explained that he was creating a new organization called begun to confirm: that the African leaders and people were Muslim Mosque, Inc., which would have both religious and 47 in strong support of the freedom struggle stateside and secular components and seek “the active participation of were eager to support it, though they would “not tolerate all negroes in our political, economic, and social programs, 48 factionalism or support particular groups or organizations despite their religious or non religious beliefs.” He initially within the movement as a whole.”43 Malcolm had long founded a religious organization because most of those been perceived as a divider by many within the mainstream who were still committed to working with Malcolm at the movement, but since his break with The Nation, he had time were Black Muslims who were still dedicated to Islam 49 been reaching out to the members of the very organizations but sought to remain apart from The Nation. Initially, he had distanced himself from in previous years. Harris he announced his intention to organize a black-nationalist later recalled, “where he and we were coming out was that convention first in June and then in August, in his effort listen, we all need to be operating off of the same page, we to generate nationwide support. During his first trip to 50 all need to be in sync with each other. There is a great op- Africa, however, it became clear to him the convention portunity to bring together the independence and freedom would not materialize and that the Muslim Mosque Inc. movements in Africa and the Civil Rights Movement in was not ideally suited to accomplish his broad goals, and 51 the United States to a human rights movement. But, im- thus he directed his efforts towards forming the OAAU. portantly, people in Ghana or Zambia or Kenya or wher- Since his break with the Nation of Islam in March, ever, do not and will not be able to make a fine distinction Malcolm’s life and philosophy had been in constant flux.52 between the NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, the Urban League,” It was evident to Lewis and Harris that his time in Africa and such.44 Both parties confirmed their conviction that had changed him—he wasn’t the “angry…brooding” man they needed to be “moving down the same track,” and if who had been presented in the media. “He seemed very they did not they were “not going to be able to get the kind hopeful,” Lewis would recall of Malcolm. “His overwhelm- of support and cohesion” they sought. Malcolm’s efforts ing reception in Africa by blacks, whites, Asians and Arabs trying to recruit support for the OAAU had made him alike had pushed him toward believing that people could even more aware of and sensitive to the “various frictions come together.”53 that were continuing to grow within the movement, and he Malcolm told them how powerful and “eye opening” didn’t mind sharing his observations with the Africans—or it had been for him to see that so many of the people he with us,” Lewis recalled. Lewis, as SNCC’s chairman, was encountered in Cairo were fair skinned. During his time all too familiar with that factionalism. That August, there in Africa, Malcolm had been exposed to a wide range of had been heated dispute among many of the key civil rights socialist ideas, and his time in Cairo had begun to validate leaders about how the Mississippi Freedom Democratic them. The American racial problem had to be seen within a Party should react to the Johnson orchestrated “compro- broader imperialist paradigm; race was not the only issue.54 mise.” Malcolm’s words would continue to ring true in the Lewis would attest in his autobiography, like many who coming months of the struggle. knew Malcolm at this point in his life, that “beyond his On 8 March 1964, Malcolm X first announced his break excitement and blossoming optimism, there was fear in the 44 Rudnick man, a nervousness that was written all over him.” He was the party’s regional secretary, and he explained to them the convinced that somebody wanted him killed and carried types of organizing the party had been working on, Lewis the burden of that anxiety with him everywhere. Little and Harris saw many similarities with SNCC’s organizing. did Lewis know this was the last time he was ever to see They had been organizing youth, holding “political train- Malcolm alive. ing and action seminars,” and trying to develop and “build 62 As Lewis and Harris parted ways with Malcolm they up district and village leadership.” Like Lewis, Harris, expressed hope that their respective organizations would and many SNCC staffers, Muleunge and others they met in communicate and collaborate more going forward.55 Mal- the party knew how it felt to be jailed fighting for freedom. colm told the pair that he really supported what SNCC They spent a good portion of the next few days talking with was doing and wanted to come visit SNCC in the South, members of the party and were pleased to be so welcome. something Lewis would write he “couldn’t have imagined The Africans were themselves glad that representatives of the hearing him say six months earlier” and had convinced him rights struggle in the States had come to their independence “this was clearly a man in the process of changing.”56 They celebration, as the usual contacts they had with Americans 63 agreed they had to “be in better contact, and work more were with diplomats and U.S. State Department employees. closely together.”57 Their time with Malcolm in Nairobi The duo took pleasure in fraternizing on what had come proved to be a pivotal point in the trip even though it was to be referred to as “Nationalist Row,’ a secluded second entirely incidental. They described it to their fellow SNCC floor suite of offices,” a meeting place for exiled members staffers upon their return as a “very important meeting.”58 of nationalist parties and groups from all over southern Indeed it was “a very very significant exchange,” Harris Africa. It was as if you could “pick your country that wasn’t would recall animatedly, even after nearly forty-five years already independent and their exiles had an office and had passed.59 were operating from there,” Harris recounted.64 The pair The pair spent the majority of their short time in Nairobi sat around with various nationalists, smoking cigarettes with Malcolm, leaving them little time to pursue many and arguing about which part of the continent produced new African contacts. Even had they never crossed paths the most beautiful women. Despite the casual nature of with Malcolm, they would not have found many productive conversation, Lewis and Harris developed a deep respect contacts in the city, as most key members of the govern- for the exiles’ dedication to liberation. These were “intense, ment were on holiday for “Kenyatta Day” during their nervous people” who knew the deep “loneliness of being short stay.”60 As they prepared to depart for Zambia now a separated from family and friends”; Zambian Independence second time, they thought deeply about their discussions had only strengthened their resolve to achieve Indepen- with Malcolm. His influence and message would not escape dence for their own people. It became clear to Lewis and them throughout the duration of the trip. The Africans Harris that Lusaka had become a crucial stop for many they came to talk with in Zambia, Ethiopia, and Egypt of these revolutionaries. As the closest liberated African were just as fixated on him and his views as the ones they city to South Africa, it served as a place where those who had encountered before that fateful meeting in Nairobi. had fled apartheid could “first rest, walk the streets with- out fear, meet friends, and receive aid from a people and a Zambia: A Taste of Freedom government who all too well knew the evils…of colonial rule.” But it also functioned as the “last refuge” for those Lewis and Harris landed in Lusaka, the Zambian capi- freedom fighters who were to return to South Africa after tal, late on 19 October with less than three dollars between spending months out of the country training and acquir- them. It seemed every room in the city was full with the ing “new skills with which to keep the fight going.” The influx of people for the independence celebrations, but they pair felt deep empathy for the men they met and began were fortunate enough to run into an old friend at the airport to see their struggle as very much a part of SNCC’s. The who arranged for them to stay with a local Indian family that American rights struggle and that of African liberation are they would grow close to during their time there. Staying crucially interdependent. “Whatever we do to help them with the family made them more aware of how different will be a significant step in helping our own struggle here,” racial stratification was in Southern Africa from what they they would insist when they met with the SNCC staff upon were used to in the States. Here, there were four racial com- their return. Many of them expressed their commitment munities: African, Coloured, Indian, and European; each to begin direct communication with SNCC and assured had its own economic and political role and oftentimes the 61 Lewis and Harris that “SNCC will not be forgotten very groups were segregated geographically as well. soon in Zambia.”65 “Let’s join hands so we can all be free At once, they sought to make contact with the United together,” one of the men offered. “We learned a great deal National Independence Party, with which Harris had met [from them]” Lewis and Harris recalled, “more than we during his stay in ’61. As they spoke with Abed Muleunge, Rudnick 45 knew we didn’t know.”66 on the chilly morning of 2 November, “as the coronation After spending time engaging with those still im- celebrations for Emperor Haile Selassie were beginning 72 mersed in the struggle for liberation, the time had come for the thirty-second time.” Lewis and Harris had just to celebrate a victory in the struggle; the long anticipated come from Africa’s newest independent nation to its oldest. independence ceremony had arrived. The festivities carried Ethiopia, with the exception of a brief Italian occupation, on for more than a week, but on the evening of 23 October, had been the only region of the continent that had man- more than 175,000 people crowded into the city’s brand aged to fight off the Europeans and maintain autonomous new Independence Stadium. Undoubtedly a highlight of rule. The pair spent only two days in Ethiopia and thus the trip, the ceremony deeply stirred Lewis and Harris. The were limited in what they were able to accomplish. They pair recounted the evening’s events with exhilaration and stayed at a Peace Corps house and had the opportunity to awe to their comrades back in SNCC when they returned see the permanent meeting place of the Organization of to Atlanta. As planes flew overhead, the shrills of excite- African Unity with which they were quite impressed. Lewis ment competed with pounding music as the procession of made contact with the Ministers of Education and Infor- parades, marches, traditional dancers and singers, acrobats, mation, but found them “quite detached, uninformed, not and military men all took their turn demonstrating their quite sure what to do about the proposals” that he offered pride in independent Zambia. Dignitaries from across the them. Like the pair had in Ghana, Lewis made a few tapes continent looked on, joined finally by president elect, Dr. to be played on Voice of America, the USIS radio program. Kenneth Kaunda.67 Minutes before midnight, the stadium It was clear to him that he and Harris were not the only went dark. Two spotlights suddenly shone on the floor of ones who had picked up on Malcolm’s pervasive influence the stadium. Dr. Kaunda and a commissioner of the queen on the continent. Lewis was sure the USIS wanted to use stood between the flagpoles as the British national anthem Harris and him “to counter the impression that Malcolm 73 played and the British flag was lowered to the ground. had made” when he had recently visited. There is no doubt Slowly, the new Zambian flag rose along the adjacent pole that federal and local police agencies were keeping close as the stadium erupted in noise. As the flag reached the top tabs on Malcolm well before his break with The Nation, but of the pole, fireworks shot into the dark night. As everyone his burgeoning internationalism was cause for increasing looked on with confusion, a woman ran from the stands concern among many in the State Department and FBI. toward Kaunda, then fell at his feet and embraced him. The Stateside, the FBI bugged his office, recorded his phone 74 thousands that packed the stands hugged as tears spotted calls, and followed all of his public appearances closely. the stadium floor. The Kwacha, the freedom flame, burned In Africa, U.S. officials, including those in the USIS and high on a nearby hill and small torches were lit for runners USIA, who were charged with building and maintaining to carry its light to all corners of the country. Freedom had relations with African nations within the larger context of finally come to Zambia.68 the Cold War power struggle, made concerted efforts to Lewis and Harris departed Zambia on one of the coun- hide the realities of the American racial divide. In Guinea, try’s new jets, stopping again briefly in Nairobi on their the SNCC delegation had seen first hand the length to way to Ethiopia. Dr. Kaunda, who was headed for Cairo, which the USIS was willing to go to protect America’s reputation on the continent, and indeed how successful the joined them on their flight to Nairobi, and an enormous 75 crowd gathered to see off their new president.69 Lewis and officials had been. And yet, in spite of this, it seems that Harris did not have the opportunity to speak with Kaunda Lewis and Harris thought it best to use whatever media ac- personally but shared in the admiration of the man who cessible to them to disseminate information about the civil had helped bring freedom to his people.70 rights struggle, even if that meant using federal government propaganda channels to spread their message. As they made their way back north towards Ethiopia, the pair reflected on the people they had met and the experi- While Lewis and Harris were in Addis Ababa, across ences the last few weeks had brought them. They thought the Atlantic, Americans went to the polls in an election about Malcolm X, about the revolutionaries who were in which President Johnson would defeat Arizona Sena- risking their lives for freedom miles below the clouds, about tor Barry Goldwater handily. The duo listened to Voice of that stadium filled with people. They began to write about America to stay up to date with the results. The election their trip and ponder how they would share it with SNCC was the first national one in which SNCC’s chairman was when they returned to the States.71 eligible to vote, and he would later recall that he “hated not being there to do it.” He later offered, “After all I’d Following the Election from the done in the name of the right to vote, it seemed crazy that Highlands of Addis Ababa I was halfway around the globe when it came time to do it myself.” The wounds of the summer were still fresh, and The plane touched down in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 46 Rudnick Lewis still resented Johnson for his pivotal role in under- In addition to spending time with the groups they met mining the MFDP effort in Atlantic City, but Johnson through the African Association, Lewis and Harris visited was clearly the better alternative to Goldwater, and Robert the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Committee building, Kennedy had been elected Senator of New York, so Lewis home of the organization that brought together 72 nations was pleased with the results.76 to represent people of color around the world, as they would later explain to SNCC. They met with a Mr. Edward, as- Cairo: The Epicenter of African sistant to the chairman of the Committee, and while their Liberation meeting was primarily “informational” they thought it The final stop of the trip for Lewis and Harris was Cairo, nonetheless important because having close contact with 77 the organization would be important once they established the most important political stop of them all. At that 82 time, Cairo served as the epicenter of a vast communication an African Bureau within SNCC as they planned to. network that stretched across the continent as well as to the When Lewis and Harris met Malcolm in Nairobi, he had Muslim world and to Europe. While Lewis and Harris had spoken at length to them about his experience in Cairo, and been in Ghana, Julian Mayfield had insisted that they must now that they had made it to Cairo themselves, they would visit Cairo because it was “the most important single center come across not only Africans with whom he had made a on the continent.”78 Mayfield and Shirley Graham Du Bois strong impression, but black Americans as well. The pair had had told the SNCC duo to get in touch with David Du an “interesting, yet confusing” meeting with a group called Bois, Shirley’s son, as soon as they arrived, and they heeded the American Muslim Student Union. David Du Bois had the advice. David Du Bois was working as a writer in Cairo connected them with the group because it was comprised of and was involved with the Egyptian government. Lewis Americans or former Americans, and he thought the group and Harris recognized him as “a very important liaison might be interested in collaborating with SNCC. When they between the Ghanaian and Egyptian governments” and his met, Lewis and Harris quickly realized that many among help enabled them to make many contacts they would have the organization’s ranks were former Black Muslims. They never been able to otherwise.79 expressed “a certain respect for SNCC” because “at least it The pair’s first destination was the African Association was doing something,” but had problems with non-violence building. Similar to Nationalist Row in Zambia, the build- as a principle. Even in Africa, the pair had been confronted ing served as a place where nearly every “nationalist group, with what was becoming a growing debate within SNCC political party of a dependent country or freedom move- stateside, whether a categorically non-violent approach was ment, no matter how small or from what country on the viable. Despite the hesitant stance of the organization as a continent had a central office.” First they met with a man whole towards SNCC, a pair of men from the group insisted, “they didn’t care what the Union’s position was, they wanted by the name of Ahmed Ebrahim, who worked with the 83 Pan African Congress. They spoke with him for hours, but to form a Cairo Friends of SNCC.” as they had now grown accustomed to, he only opened up Cairo was an international city, and to Lewis and Harris when they articulated their position in relation to Malcolm it seemed the center of the liberation struggle for people of X’s. The following day, Ebrahim arranged an opportunity color around the world. Harris later recalled that when they for Lewis and Harris to address the entire African Associa- returned to Atlanta, they explained to SNCC that Cairo had tion, an opportunity previously only afforded to Malcolm been important because it exposed them directly not just to X. The two were “surprised and flattered” and spoke to African revolutionaries, but to the institutions of African the fourteen different groups that were there, answering liberation. Their time in the international city reinforced the “eager audience’s” questions over a number of hours. the importance of a more internationalist self-conception Throughout the rest of the week they met with a number of SNCC. Both on Nationalists Row in Lusaka and at the of these groups privately to continue their discussion, and African Association building in Cairo, the pair had met most proved “eager to begin some kind of exchange,” many revolutionaries from across the continent and seen intimately asking if SNCC could arrange tours for their members that the struggles they were engaged in were interrelated; already in the United States “to see what was going on in they shared aspirations, motivations, and fears to a far greater the American South.”80 Along with meeting the various extent than Lewis and Harris previously had the opportunity members of the Association, they spoke with a variety of to understand. They determined, “Here were people who newspaper editors and journalists, including a Mr. Has- were directly engaged in the struggle…with whom we should san, Foreign Editor of The Middle East News Agency, who have ongoing contact… continuing communication and cor- 84 promised them that “any time [they] could cable informa- respondence, and sharing of ideas.” tion to him he could assure…it would get into a majority of On Lewis and Harris’ last full day on the continent, they the 36 or so newspapers that are printed in Cairo.”81 spent the morning at Cairo University, speaking with stu- Rudnick 47 dents and professors. In the mid-afternoon, they boarded a Freedom Movement here and the various liberation move- bus to Giza, to see the famed pyramids and sphinx. Their ments in Africa” and were “completely disregarding” the bus pulled in as the sun was starting to set. Renting two potential that lay in these contacts and those with African camels, they rode out to the pyramids and gazed out across students and embassies already in the States. The “growing the desert as the sun slipped behind the pyramids and cast importance…political and economic ideologies, as well as fading shadows on the white sand. They sat in silence and [the] increasing influence in world opinion” of countries reflected on all that had happened in the two and a half throughout Africa and Asia, had to be recognized and months since they had boarded the plane in New York back “communicated to the people” with whom SNCC worked. in September. “Dusk fell and the loudest noise was the Yet, implicitly, in the way they presented their proposal, 85 breathing of the camels.” Lewis and Harris seemed aware that maintaining many Louis and Harris arrived back on American soil on 22 of the contacts they had gathered abroad would be no November. They’d been gone seventy-two days, and in the simple task, and perhaps more importantly, would require a coming weeks would come to learn what had transpired regular stream of resources that simply were not at SNCC’s in the organization while they were away. Lewis recalls disposal at that point in time. They thus also stressed that once they returned he and Harris did a number of that African students in the States and the many African interviews with the press and had “a lot of opportunities to diplomats who worked in Washington and New York could spread the lessons we’d learned from our journey.”86 prove important contacts and allies. The “failure to uti- lize” both of these groups was indeed “a great lack in the Rights Movement,” they insisted. Ultimately, what Lewis and Harris wanted to convey to the organization was not merely the importance of one particular political contact or another, but rather their conviction that “SNCC and the entire movement [had] a need to increase its scope.” Hoping to take a substantive step in that direction, Lewis and Harris proposed establishing “an international wing— specifically an African Bureau or Secretariat.”88 Having such a wing of the organization, they insisted, would enable SNCC to funnel these contacts in a productive way. They recommended that the new bureau be linked with SNCC’s communications department and focus on “writing” and “receiving communications from international contacts,” thereby developing an international mailing list to which SNCC could regularly send updates and SNCC publica- tions. 89 Lewis and Harris suggested that the project would require the ful-time work of at least two SNCC staffers, Lewis and Harris’ Route Across the African Continent. individuals who were not afraid of personal confrontation. Courtesy of Custom Digital Maps. Recognizing SNCC’s characteristic disorganization, they emphasized that these people had to be intensely devoted to Reporting Back this particular project, and work to meet people face to face. This could not devolve to “four and five different people On 14 December, Lewis and Harris submitted a re- communicating with someone and, in SNCC tradition, port to SNCC in which they detailed the trip and offered 90 telling them four or five different things.” a number of proposals. Their experience in Africa had Some of the proposals Lewis and Harris offered took reshaped the context within which they understood SNCC some time to develop into concrete action. Almost a year and the movement as a whole, and they wanted desperately would pass before Dona Richards began the work of to convey their new perspective to the rest of the organi- creating an Africa Project in earnest. Indeed, despite the zation. They wrote about the various contacts they had optimistic tone of the report, Lewis and Harris implicitly made on the continent and expressed their belief that it acknowledge in it the potential areas in which the more was “eminently important that these contacts be utilized to involved goals of the proposed program might be difficult their best advantage, not only for SNCC, but for the Move- 87 to implement both financially and organizationally. Follow- ment as a whole.” They acknowledged that many other key ing up on their meeting with Malcolm, however, would not figures and organizations within the movement “have not require sustained financial or human resources and proved yet recognized the necessity of a strong link between the 48 Rudnick crucially important in conveying the vision the trip had few years earlier they would not have seen him as a paragon generated. SNCC increasingly began to see itself as more because their eyes were not cast beyond the Atlantic. “Two than merely a part of the civil rights struggle, as its staffers or three years ago most of our people would choose to sing widened their perspectives beyond American shores. about someone who was…passive and meek and humble and forgiving.” Odinga was none of these, but he was free, Sowing the Seeds of Internationalism Malcolm asserted.96 and Collaboration Black Americans, he assured the audience, could best Less than a month from the day when Lewis and Harris’ learn how to liberate themselves by studying how the plane touched down in the United States and less than a Kenyan revolutionaries Kenyatta and Odinga had brought week after the pair submitted their official report of the trip freedom to their people. Referencing the Kenyan Mau Mau to SNCC, the seeds of collaboration between Malcolm and Rebellion he proclaimed, “In Mississippi we need a Mau SNCC began to take root. In December, a group of repre- Mau. In Alabama we need a Mau Mau. In Georgia we sentatives from the MFDP traveled to a number of north- need a Mau Mau. Right here in Harlem, in New York City, ern cities in an attempt to gain both political and financial we need a Mau Mau.” Malcolm explained that the Africans support for their newest endeavor; they planned to block who had won their independence did not just “sit around and talk about their plight” or sing “We Shall Overcome”; the five segregationist representatives from Mississippi from 97 being seated in Congress when it convened again in January they demanded and took their freedom. He called upon on the grounds that they had been elected illegally because his audience to summon the anger that had pushed the the blacks in the state had been systematically disenfran- Africans to action and use it to force change. chised.91 Repeatedly recalling the brutality that Mrs. Hamer had At a rally held at Williams Institutional CME Church experienced in Mississippi for which she had garnered at- in Harlem on 20 December, which had been organized tention with a stirring address at the convention in Atlantic to support the MFDP effort, Fannie Lou Hamer spoke, City in August, Malcolm challenged black manhood for followed by a performance from the SNCC Freedom Sing- allowing the violence against black women and children ers. In fact, Hamer generally joined the singers, recalled to continue. He urged the audience of the need to address white racist America in their own “language,” even if that Charles Neblett, one of the Freedom Singers on the trip. 98 “We’d let her sing all the songs we did that she knew” language was “a rifle” or “a rope.” He was trying to make Neblett remembered, “When somebody puts their inner his audience see that non-violence as a principle was flawed self into a song, it moves people. Her singing showed the by equating it with speaking a language that racist America kind of dedication that she had—the struggle and the pain, could not understand. “Some people wonder,” he remarked, the frustration and the hope…Her life would be in that “What has Mississippi got to do with Harlem?” Then he song.”92 That afternoon, Hamer explained to the audience answered, “It isn’t actually Mississippi; it’s America. Amer- ica is Mississippi...There’s no such thing as the South—it’s the challenge ahead; unseating five southern members of 99 Congress would undoubtedly prove difficult. Despite her America.” He continued, “So, what happens in Missis- sippi and the South has a direct bearing on what happens disappointment at the convention in August, she believed 100 that if Americans pushed their representatives on the issue to you and me here in Harlem.” Malcolm truly believed of the disenfranchisement of blacks in Mississippi, suc- that the struggle needed a wider lens, that the movement cess was not out of reach.93 Following Hamer’s address, the had been relying on ineffective strategies, and he conveyed Freedom Singers engaged the audience at the church with this to those in SNCC and the others at the rally as he had a number of their songs, among them “Oginga Odinga of to Lewis and Harris in Nairobi. The pair had shared their Kenya” a tribute to the Kenyan revolutionary.94 Kenya had experiences with the organization, and hearing Malcolm gained its independence a year earlier and had transitioned emphasize the same message of internationalism reinforced to a republic the previous week. As they concluded, Mal- it for Hamer and the Freedom Singers. Malcolm “had tremendous respect for Mrs. Hamer and a “tremendous colm X stood up to address the crowd. Hamer had invited 101 Malcolm to share some words at the rally. It was after all respect for what we were doing,” Neblett would recall. in Harlem, the base of his support and the center of the SNCC reached out to Malcolm, and he offered his hand to OAAU. Neblett and the freedom singers were thrilled that SNCC. As he concluded his speech, Malcolm extended a Malcolm had agreed to speak at the rally. “He was so brave public invitation to Hamer and the Freedom Singers to a and courageous. We all wanted to meet him,” Neblett re- meeting of the OAAU that same evening at the Audubon membered.95 Malcolm began his address by directly engag- Ballroom in Harlem. They excitedly accepted. ing the Freedom Singers. He remarked that it was “quite That evening, Malcolm spoke again, reiterating his significant” that they had decided to sing about Odinga. A themes from the afternoon. He explained that blacks in Rudnick 49 America had tried myriad different methods to achieve themselves and realize that they were not alone in Missis- their freedom, and yet they still had not quite figured it out, sippi, but rather that they had “as much power on [their] because “everywhere you look, people get their freedom side as that Ku Klux Klan [had] on its side.”108 The entire faster than we do”102 That’s why, he continued, before they black world was behind them. As the youngsters listened to could spell out a program for the new organization they had Malcolm, they came to see the power of an international- to first acknowledge and understand that “all existing pro- ized struggle. Malcolm explained that his generation “sat grams aren’t programs that are going to produce productive around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was results” and before they could take action they needed to fighting for its human rights,” but the youngsters had the “analyze and analyze and analyze” to better understand the opportunity to join that fight. He committed his support to problem they faced.103 Malcolm continued, “When you and the group and their efforts to register blacks in Mississippi, I are inside of America and look at America, she looks big remarking, “If you don’t have enough people down there and bad and invincible” and “when we approach her in that to do it, we’ll come down there and help you do it.”109 He context, we approach her as beggars with our hat in our added that they shouldn’t need to worry about being the hands.” If people would only broaden their perspective and victims of racist violence, and if confronted with violence, look beyond the country’s shores, they would see “a freedom they had a right and responsibility to protect themselves. If struggle of people all over the world.”104 They would see they needed help doing that too, he concluded, “we’re with that “you can’t understand what is going on in Mississippi you one thousand percent.”110 Malcolm had a remarkable if you don’t understand what is going on in the Congo… impact on the young Mississippians; he made “a hell of an They’re both the same. The same interests are at stake. The impression” Stokely Carmichael remembered.111 SNCC had same sides are drawn up, the same schemes are at work.”105 provided them exposure to Malcolm X and his distinctively Malcolm implored the modest gathering to open their eyes accessible and articulate way of interpreting and describing to the worldwide revolution going on around them, “The the struggle. In turn, Malcolm had offered them an inter- Africans see it, the Latin Americans see it, the Asians see national lens that had largely not been utilized amongst the it. So when you hear them talking about freedom, they’re youth. Carmichael recalled, “The youth came back elated, not talking about a cup of coffee with a cracker. No, they’re just elated, talking about nothing but Malcolm.112 talking about getting in a position to feed themselves and In early February, James Forman invited Malcolm to clothe themselves and make these other things that, when speak to a group of students at Tuskegee Institute. The 106 you have them, make life worth living.” Southern Christian Leadership Conference was at this Pointing to the infighting in the movement, Malcolm as- point in the midst of a voting rights campaign in Selma, serted that rather than arguing amongst themselves, black Alabama, which would ultimately lead to the famed Selma Americans needed to come together, to rely on the support to Montgomery marches. SNCC’s presence in Selma had of their revolutionary brothers, to form their power base not been relatively small, but the regular staffers who worked in in a crooked American political system, but rather “among Selma had gotten involved with the campaign as had Chair- brothers and sisters…among people who have something in man Lewis.113 Knowing Malcolm was nearby, newly elected common with [them],” among the oppressed peoples of the Selma project director, Silas Norman, and SNCC Secretary world. Malcolm’s impassioned words had a tremendous im- Faye Bellamy, drove to Tuskegee and invited Malcolm to pact on Hamer and the SNCC Freedom Singers, but they join them in Selma. They were sure he would be able to were not ready to give up on the political establishment.107 frame the voting rights campaign in a new light and enable They were convinced that the new MFDP challenge had the group to engage Malcolm’s militant perspective. Recall- promise and that progress could be made. But Malcolm had ing the trip to Tuskegee, Bellamy later remarked, “When he also opened up their eyes to an alternative, and they began talked to us, little doors in my mind would literally just pop to see the international scope of their struggle. open; I could feel the impulses in my brain pulsating with Only weeks later, Hamer returned to Harlem, this time energy. It was visceral and astonishing.” She knew it would with a group of thirty-seven teenagers from McComb, be “a good idea to expose the young people to Malcolm’s Mississippi. The trip, sponsored by SNCC, took the stu- thinking and teachings. Malcolm readily accepted the invi- 114 dents to New York during their Christmas vacation to at- tation and arrived in Selma on 4 February. tend various meetings and discussions in Harlem, to reward Martin Luther King Jr. had been arrested a short time them for their commitment to civil rights in McComb and earlier, and Malcolm’s arrival in Selma put SCLC staffers on provide them an opportunity to learn more. As part of their high alert. They worried he might say something to jeop- trip, Hamer arranged for Malcolm to speak with them ardize their efforts in Selma, and before he spoke at a rally on the last day of 1964 in Harlem’s Hotel Theresa. As the at Brown’s Chapel they urged him not to incite anything.115 youth eagerly listened, Malcolm implored them to think for Bellamy later recalled that Malcolm used the opportunity 50 Rudnick to share his views on nonviolence; he sought “to give people ing it, and saw that as the way to go.” It was “heart and soul an alternative to think about.”116 He refused to march with what we were talking about.”121 the organizers, claiming he could not support a nonviolent As Lewis and Harris explained perceptions of Malcolm demonstration, but reaffirmed to the SNCC staffers his -com in Africa, members of the organization, including those mitment to SNCC. “He told us if we ever needed his help who didn’t even know who Malcolm was “began to sit up in Selma—or anywhere else—to call him” and “he sounded and take notice.”122 “People began to look closer,” Carmi- 117 sincere.” He explained to the SNCC staffers that he had chael recalled, “of course the closer they looked at Malcolm plans to start recruiting for the OAAU in the South “in about X, the quicker they got hooked on Malcolm X.” Lewis and two weeks.” Later in the church, he whispered to Coretta Harris’ impression of Malcolm in Africa spread throughout Scott King, who had come in place of her husband, that he SNCC’s ranks, and when Malcolm was invited into Selma “was trying to help.” He hoped his involvement might make to speak, Carmichael recalled, “no one in SNCC could op- it easer for whites to come around to King’s proposals. “He pose it. As a matter of fact everyone was happy.”123 Mal- seemed rather anxious to let Martin know he was not causing colm had a “profound impact” on SNCC.124 trouble or making it difficult, but that he was trying to make The trip had opened SNCC’s eyes to Malcolm’s evolv- it easier.” Like Bellamy, she remembered, “He seemed sin- 118 ing philosophy and the importance of an internationalist cere.” Program Director at the time, Cleveland Sellers, later awareness in the struggle, and in SNCC Malcolm had elucidated why they had decided to bring Malcolm to Selma. found an organization willing and ready to collaborate. “Our idea was to expand on Malcolm’s identification with Carmichael later recollected in his autobiography, “Since our struggle and young people in the South but at the same his return from Africa, Malcolm, now free of the political time to get young people to begin to appreciate the leadership and ideological constraints of the Nation, had been reach- and the efforts on the part of other leaders who were not as 119 ing out to movement leaders…some of us had been talking popular in the press.” about a role for him with SNCC. The voting rights bill was Since his break with the Nation in March, Malcolm had coming. I knew we in SNCC would have to begin looking been seeking to develop ties with mainstream civil rights seriously to the ghettos in the North for the kind of grass- leaders and organizations. He believed that only if he unit- roots organizing we’d been doing in the South. Malcolm ed the movement could his new organization flourish. And would be key. We weren’t sure how it could work, or if such yet, Malcolm had found few people within the movement a thing was even possible, but it wasn’t as strange as people receptive to his invitation. Earlier in the year, even SNCC, seemed to think.” Indeed, Carmichael would assert, “Of all the most radically left of the prominent organizations in the civil rights groups, I knew he felt closest to us, to the the movement, kept its distance from Malcolm’s embrace. SNCC spirit.”125 Stokely Carmichael, who soon adopted many of Malcolm’s ideas and became famous two years later for articulating many of them in the Black Power Movement, questioned what Malcolm could offer to the movement. Forman, who later attested to Malcolm’s profound influence on SNCC, responded negatively when asked by Joseph B Cumming, Jr., of Newsweek whether SNCC and Malcolm might come together. “Come on, man. I don’t know anything about Malcolm X.” When asked if SNCC would work with him, “Look, man, come on.” He insisted, “I don’t feel threatened [by Malcolm X]. We’re pretty secure psychologically… Look, man, nobody’s worried about Malcolm X.”120 Despite hesitation less than a year earlier by many in SNCC’s ranks, the trip introduced SNCC to a new Mal- colm, one who seemed to articulate a fresh direction for the struggle, one who helped confirm the militancy to which some in SNCC were already leaning. “There was no ques- tion that our time in Nairobi brought him closer to SNCC and to the work we were doing,” Harris remembered. Mal- colm’s evolving relationship with SNCC subsequent to his and Lewis’ meeting in Africa “was based in good measure Timeline of SNCC and Malcolm X, 1964-1965 on the fact that we were certainly hoping for it, encourag- Courtesy of Author Rudnick 51 On 15 February, during the question and answer period a crucial philosophical tenet in SNCC and would outlive following a speech at the Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm Malcolm and his collaboration with the organization. The discussed his recent experience in Selma. “Those people down encounter with Malcolm and the entire extended trip on there aren’t afraid, they’re just waiting for somebody to tell the continent dramatically increased interest and sustained them what to do. That’s all….And I promised the brothers action on the international front for years to come. SNCC and sisters in Alabama when I was there that we’d be back. I’ll henceforth always understood itself within a context much be back.”126 bigger than the American South, within an immense He never came back. Malcolm and SNCC were poised to struggle for the empowerment of people of color the world take strides together. Only a week later, on 21 February 1965, over. The subsequent evolution of SNCC’s orientation and Malcolm was assassinated and the growing relationship was priorities, which had enormous implications for SNCC and forever severed. People in SNCC were “devastated.”127 the entirety of the American Civil Rights Movement, must “Before his assassination most of us were convinced that his be in part attributed to Malcolm X and that coincidental cup awesome charisma and brilliant insights would have resulted of coffee. in his becoming one of the first men in history to lead a multi- continental revolutionary movement,” Sellers commented in his autobiography. Perhaps the expectations were a product of 1 John Lewis and Michael D’Orso, Walking with the Wind: A SNCC’s idealism. Perhaps they were more than that. Memoir of the Movement (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 287. Lewis, who himself knew the struggles of leadership and 2 John Lewis and Donald Harris, “‘The Trip Report’ on Travels mobilization lamented the loss of the singular leader. “More in Africa.” 14 December 1964, reel 1, no. 37. SNCC Papers than any other single personality, he was able to articu- (microfilm), 8. late the aspiration, bitterness and frustration of the Negro 3 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 287. people. Not only in the Northern ghettos, but also in the 4 In the summer of 1964, Freedom Summer, SNCC orches- black-belt Delta area of the Deep South. Malcolm was a trated its largest and most involved organizing project to date, living link between Africa and the civil rights movement in mobilizing hundreds of northern college students and local this country.” volunteers to fight black disenfranchisement in the state of Mississippi and force confrontation between state and federal The coincidental encounter between Lewis, Harris, and authorities over black civil rights. The Mississippi Freedom Malcolm X, though discussed only in passing in most Democratic Party challenge at the Democratic National scholarly writing about SNCC and Malcolm, came at a Convention in Atlantic City, which SNCC staffers had hoped time when Malcolm’s evolved philosophy and increasingly would be a glorious capstone to the summer’s work, ultimately failed, teaching SNCC’s staff a bitter lesson in power politics open attitude toward the movement coalesced with SNCC’s and compelling them to reassess the organization’s goals and increased interest in internationalism and deep respect for tactics. Malcolm’s influence. Malcolm found in SNCC an organiza- 5 On 11 September 1964, an eleven-person delegation from tion that was receptive to his message of international black SNCC traveled to newly independent Guinea on the orga- unity and collaboration, and SNCC found in Malcolm a nization’s first official trip to Africa. Following their time man who could articulate the interconnectedness of the in Guinea, John Lewis and Donald Harris remained on the continent, while the rest of the delegation returned to the international black struggle in a way no one had before. States on 2 October to address a number of unresolved orga- Though short lived, the collaboration with Malcolm that nizational issues. For a more in depth discussion of the entire grew out of the encounter in Kenya marks perhaps one of trip, including the official delegation to Guinea, see my Senior the greatest “what if” moments in the history of the Ameri- Honors Thesis in history. can black rights struggle. One can only imagine what might 6 Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and The Black Awaken- have happened had Malcolm not lost his life and had the ing of the 1960s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). relationship been granted an opportunity to develop. An 7 In the penultimate chapter of his treatise, Carson examines enduring collaboration between Malcolm, one of the most SNCC’s growing connection with internationalism in the final articulate and most efficient organizers of the twentieth cen- years of its relevance on the American civil rights scene. He tury, with SNCC, an organization of national prominence discusses SNCC’s establishment of an International Affairs with the rare ability to harness the idealism and commit- Commission in 1967, its heightened resistance to American ment of America’s youth, may have entirely redirected the involvement in Vietnam, and its public expressions of solidar- ity with foreign radical and revolutionary groups. Carson trajectory of the American Civil Rights Movement. elaborates on SNCC’s increasing collaboration and association Malcolm’s assassination in February of 1965 ended any with Third World revolutionary movements and describes hope of a blossoming relationship between SNCC and trips that SNCC staffers took to North Vietnam, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Japan, and the Soviet Union in 1966 Malcolm. And yet, the message that Malcolm conveyed and 1967. “Increasingly convinced that racial violence in the to Lewis and Harris in Nairobi had begun to take root as United States was moving toward a stage of revolutionary 52 Rudnick struggle, staff members sought inspiration from Third World years of the nation. Entitled American Africans in Ghana: revolutionaries who had forcefully and sometimes successful- Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era, his narrative ly resisted European domination,” he asserts. Devoting great weaves together the life stories of a number of influential attention to Stokely Carmichael’s role in SNCC’s increased members of the community, including those whom Lewis international engagement, Carson explains that, after finish- and Harris met during their stay in Accra. An entire chapter ing his term as chairman in 1967, Carmichael spent four of the book is devoted to Malcolm X’s visits to Ghana and months traveling the globe trying to “establish the revolu- the pervasive influence he had on both the expatriate com- tionary credentials of Afro-Americans in the eyes of Third munity and the broader nation. Malcolm arrived in Ghana World revolutionaries.” He recalls Carmichael’s message for the first time on 5 May 1964 and was greeted warmly by that “Our struggle will be one and the same…Our struggles the expatriate community. He explained to them his desire to should be coordinated.” work toward unity of the various civil rights organizations in Describing in detail Carmichael’s visit to Cuba, Vietnam, the States and explained his plan to charge the United States China, the Soviet Union and Guinea, Carson fails to bridge government with human rights violations before the UN. SNCC’s international interests in 1966 and 1967 to earlier He explained to them his desire to “bypass the civil rights developments in the organization. He writes of how Carmi- movement’s reliance on white goodwill and bring the U.S. chael met Shirley Graham Du Bois during his travels and government to account before the international community.” that she urged him to go to Guinea and meet with President The message he conveyed to the group in May was almost Sékou Touré and recently exiled former Ghanaian President identical to the one that he conveyed to Lewis and Harris in Kwame Nkrumah. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that October. See Kevin K. Gaines, American Africans in Ghana: John Lewis and Donald Harris met with Du Bois during Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era (Chapel Hill, NC: their extended trip around the continent in 1964. In fact, University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 190-192. he draws no link between Carmichael’s trip to Guinea and 19 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 2. meeting with Touré and SNCC’s delegation to Guinea three 20 Ibid. years earlier. The two events are inexorably connected by a coherent trajectory of internationalism within SNCC, but 21 Lacy’s memoir discusses at length life in Ghana among the Carson treats them as independent events. SNCC’s delega- expatriate community. See Leslie Alexander Lacy, The Rise tion to Guinea and Lewis and Harris’ extended trip around and Fall of a Proper Negro (New York: Macmillan, 1970). the African continent laid the foundations for SNCC’s later 22 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 2. engagement with Pan-Africanism, but Carson fails to eluci- date the connection. In the years following the trip, Carmi- 23 Ibid., 3. chael would later speak extensively about its importance in 24 In an attempt to determine what, if any, evidence of Lewis spurring SNCC’s evolving international consciousness, but and Harris’ time in Ghana was documented and archived, Carson makes no mention of the connection. See Carson, In I spent an extensive period of time searching through the Struggle, 265-286. Bureau of African Affairs papers at the National Archives of 8 Carson: In Struggle, 136. Ghana and George Padmore Library. Though I was unable to uncover any direct references to the trip, the search at the 9 Ibid. National Archives proved fruitful in that it situated the trip 10 Fannon Che Wilkins published a brilliant article in 2007 in within the broader Ghanaian and African political climate. which he argues for the importance of SNCC’s internation- My time at the Padmore was less productive because the alism in the years before the organization officially turned library was in the process of digitalizing its archives and, as a to black power. In his article, he discusses the delegation to result, I was only able to view a small amount of the archived Guinea, Lewis and Harris’ trip that followed, as well as the material. establishment of the African Bureau, all within the context of 25 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 2. arguing that SNCC’s interests and activities went far beyond the South even before the time in which civil rights histori- 26 Ibid., 3. ans have tended to periodize SNCC’s internationalism. He, 27 Gaines, American Africans in Ghana, 141. however, does not discuss the collaboration between SNCC 28 Wilkins, “Making of Black Internationalists,” 481. and Malcolm X after the trip. See: Fanon Che Wilkins, “The Making of Black Internationalists: SNCC and Africa Before 29 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 4. the Launching of Black Power, 1960-1965,” Journal of African 30 Ibid., 3. American History 92, no. 4 (2007): 468-490. 31 Ibid. 11 Carson, In Struggle, 135. 32 Ibid. 12 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 286. 33 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 286. 13 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. 34 Ibid. 14 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 285. 35 Ibid. 15 Statement by John Lewis, Chairman, Staff Meeting February 1965, reel 1, no. 37, SNCC Papers (microfilm). 36 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 4. 16 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 1. 37 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. 17 Ibid., 5. 38 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 8. 18 Kevin Gaines has written a fascinating account of the expa- 39 Ibid. triate community in Ghana and its importance in the early 40 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 287. Rudnick 53 41 Ibid. opportunity for sustained reflection, one must expect that here and there an occasional solecism, murky generalization, or even 42 Ibid., 288. self-contradiction will crop up. But these minor lapses are to be 43 Ibid. found in the rhetoric of anyone who speaks extemporaneously 44 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. with the frequency that Malcolm did during those hectic days; they are entirely inconsequential in comparison with the overall 45 For a detailed secondary account of the precipitating factors tendency of Malcolm’s thinking.” See Breitman, Last Year of and events leading to Malcolm’s break with the Nation see Malcolm X, 22-25. the first chapter of George Breitman’s detailed exegesis of Malcolm’s final year of life. See: George Breitman, The Last 53 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 286. Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary (New York: 54 Ibid., 288. For a firsthand account of Malcolm’s visit to Cairo Pathfinder Press, 1967). earlier that summer for the Organization of African Unity con- 46 Alex Haley and Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X ference see chapters nine and ten of David Graham Du Bois’s (New York: Ballantine Books, 1999), 311. autobiographical piece: David Graham Du Bois, And Bid Him Sing: A Novel (Palo Alto, CA: Ramparts Press, 1975). Alter- 47 Malcolm would remark during a speech in early April, “It’s natively, for a good secondary source account of Malcolm’s two true we’re Muslims and our religion is Islam, but we don’t mix months in Cairo, see chapter twenty-five of Peter Goldman, our religion with our politics and our economics and our social The Death and Life of Malcolm X (Urbana: University of Illinois, and civil activities—not any more.” See George Breitman, ed., 1979). Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements (New York: Grove Press, 1965), 38. 55 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 8. 48 Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 21. 56 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 288. 49 Breitman, Last Year of Malcolm X, 73. 57 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. 50 On 13 April 1964, Malcolm began a trip that would last five 58 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 8. weeks and take him to Mecca and Africa for the first time. 59 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. 51 Breitman, Last Year of Malcolm X, 77. Breitman explains that on 60 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 9. 24 June Malcolm sent a public letter to the heads of local and 61 Ibid., 6. national civil rights organizations as well as representatives of African nations in the United States inviting them to attend a 62 Ibid., 5. 28 June rally of his new OAAU at the Audubon in New York, 63 Ibid. where the aims and objectives of the new organization would be publicly announced for the first time. His letter acknowl- 64 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. edged their sincerity in the struggle and noted that the new 65 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 7. organization “would in no way compete with already existing successful organizations.” Few attended the rally or joined the 66 Ibid., 6. organization. 67 Ibid. 52 Breitman explains that Malcolm’s autobiography fails to ad- 68 Ibid., 7. equately convey the state of Malcolm’s philosophy at the end of 69 Ibid., 8. his life because of the pace with which that philosophy evolved in his final year. Much had changed in his final year by which 70 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. point much of Malcolm’s story had already been dictated to 71 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 289. Lewis’s ac- and recorded by Haley, and Haley insisted Malcolm not revise count suggests that he and Harris wrote notes throughout the large portions of the work. Some material was added in the duration of the trip, which helped them to write their formal spring of 1964 and then again in December of 1964. There is report to SNCC upon their return. very little written about his second and longer international trip and nothing written about his final three months of life when 72 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 9. Breitman explains, “his ideas were developing most rapidly.” 73 Ibid. The autobiography thus fails to demonstrate Malcolm’s fully 74 Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X, 256. evolved state of thinking at the time of his death. For a more detailed explanation of the changes Malcolm intended to make 75 One afternoon in Conakry, a number of the staffers came to his autobiographical account see Breitman, Last Year of Mal- across the office of the USIS. As they passed the office they colm X, 4-5. Breitman further explains the inherent difficulty in were startled by what they saw in the window display. “There pinpointing Malcolm’s philosophy in the transition period be- were all these pictures of Negroes doing things. Negro judges, tween his break and early work building the OAAU. With the Negro policemen, and if you didn’t know anything about freedom to develop a more nuanced personal philosophy after America, like Africans would not, you would think these were his break with Muhammad, he had to work out where he stood really commonplace things,” Bond recalled. “That’s the worst on a range of issues. “Inevitably,” Breitman explains, Malcolm kind of deceit.” The blatant misrepresentation infuriated the “made mistakes…made some false starts and had to retrace his young activists, particularly Moses, who had grown remark- steps.” As a result, some of what he said in speeches and press ably cynical about the government’s intentions in response to releases seems contradictory in these transitional months and Johnson and his administration’s maneuverings that summer. ultimately the positions Malcolm took changed in the final See John Neary, Julian Bond: Black Rebel (New York: William months of his life. Furthermore, as Frank Kofsky points out, Morrow, 1971), 73. Malcolm’s speeches alone do not provide an entirely clear pic- 76 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 289. ture of his evolving political philosophy. “Given the work-horse schedule of Malcolm’s final months and the absence of any 77 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 12. 54 Rudnick 78 Ibid., 3. 112 Ibid. 79 Ibid., 10. 113 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 312. 80 Ibid., 12. 114 Fay Bellamy recounts bringing Malcolm to Selma in the newly 81 Ibid., 11. published compilation of women’s oral histories. See Holsaert et al., Hands on the Freedom Plow, 373-475. 82 Ibid., 12. 115 Alvin Adams, “Malcolm X ‘Seemed Sincere,’” Jet, March 11, 83 Ibid., 11. 1965, 30. 84 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. 116 Ibid., 28. 85 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 12. 117 Ibid. 86 Lewis and D’Orso, Walking with the Wind, 290. I have been 118 Ibid., 30. unable to locate any substantial coverage in either the national media or the black press about the trip, leading me to question 119 Interview with Cleveland Sellers, conducted by Blackside, Inc. what came of these interviews to which Lewis refers in his on October 21, 1988, for Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Ra- autobiography. cial Crossroads 1965 to 1985. Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection, 5. 87 Lewis and Harris, “The Trip Report,” 13. 120 Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X, 142. During his 88 Ibid. years with The Nation, Malcolm had developed a reputation as 89 Ibid., 14. a pariah among many of the leaders in the mainstream orga- nizations of the movement. His separatist ideology had been 90 Ibid. fundamentally at odds with the integrationist stance of the 91 Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou mainstream movement, and Malcolm had repeatedly criticized Hamer (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 108. many of the movement’s leaders as ‘toms’ who were simply pan- dering to the white establishment. After years of this legacy, 92 Kay Mills, This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Malcolm found it exceedingly hard to penetrate any of the Hamer (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), organizations from which he sought support and collaboration. 140. As Goldman explains, “Their mutual history of no faith and ill 93 Ibid., 141. will stood between them; so did their irreconcilable ideologies 94 Matthew Jones, who had represented the Freedom Singers on and strategies for change; so did Malcolm’s wretched media the delegation to Guinea, composed the tribute piece. Almost reputation as an anti-white, anti-Semitic demagogue and now exactly a year prior to the December meeting with Malcolm in as an advocate of taking up guns as well.” Certainly there was Harlem, a number of SNCC staffers in the Atlanta office had a wide range of opinions about Malcolm in SNCC in the early met Mr. Oginga Odinga during his visit to the city on a State months of 1964, and different members of the organization Department tour. He spoke with SNCC about “the history of had varying levels of exposure to him and his ideas. What is Kenya’s liberation movement and their vision of maintaining clear is that the mainstream media regularly presented him as a ‘people’s struggle,’” Judy Richardson remembered. See Faith a fanatic, and many in SNCC did not have much exposure to S. Holsaert et. al., eds., Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal him personally because his sphere of influence emanated from Accounts by Women in SNCC (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, Harlem, far from the organizing efforts of the SNCC staffers. 2010), 352-353. Harris explained to me in an interview that being from New York, he had more exposure to Malcolm than many others 95 Mills, This Little Light of Mine, 141. within the organization. He had seen him speak on a number 96 Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 106. of occasions in New York out of “personal curiosity,” and Mal- colm had even spoken to a group of students at Rutgers while 97 Ibid., 107. Harris was enrolled as an undergraduate there. 98 Ibid., 108. 121 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. 99 Ibid. 122 Interview with Stokely Carmichael, conducted by Blackside, Inc. 100 Ibid., 109. on November 7, 1988, for Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965 to 1985. Washington University Librar- 101 Mills, This Little Light of Mine, 140. ies, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection, 2. 102 Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 116. 123 Ibid. 103 Ibid., 118. 124 Ibid. 104 Ibid., 117. 125 Carmichael and Thelwell, Ready for Revolution, 440. 105 Ibid., 125. 126 Bruce Perry, ed., Malcolm X: The Last Speeches (New York: 106 Ibid., 128. Pathfinder, 1989), 146. 107 Lee, For Freedom’s Sake, 103-104. 127 Donald Harris Interview with Author, 5 November 2010. 108 Breitman, Malcolm X Speaks, 143. Bibliography 109 Ibid., 144. Primary Sources: 110 Ibid., 146. 111 Stokely Carmichael and Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Ready for Adams, Alvin. “Malcolm X ‘Seemed Sincere’” Jet, March 11, 1965, Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame 28-30. Ture) (New York: Scribner, 2003), 440. Rudnick 55 “An Oral History with Fannie Lou Hamer,” Interviewed by Neil Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. McMillen on 14 April 1972 and 25 January 1973, University Interview with Robert Moses, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on May of Southern Mississippi Digital Collections, http://digilib.usm. 19, 1986, for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years edu/u?/coh,2927. (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Breitman, George, ed., Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and State- Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. ments. New York: Grove Press, 1965. Interview with Stokely Carmichael, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on Bureau of African Affairs Files: National Archives of Ghana November 7, 1988, for Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Ra- (PRAAD). cial Crossroads 1965 to 1985. Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. Carmichael, Stokely, and Ekwueme Michael Thelwell. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Lewis, John, and Michael D’Orso. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir Ture). New York: Scribner, 2003. of the Movement. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. Carson, Clayborne, ed. The Student Voice 1960-1965: Periodical of Lynd, Staughton. “A Radical Speaks in Defense of S.N.C.C.” New the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Westport, CT: York Times Magazine, September 10, 1967. Meckler, 1990. Perry, Bruce, ed., Malcolm X: The Last Speeches. New York: Path- Carson, Clayborne, David J. Garrow, Gerald Gill, Vincent Harding, finder, 1989. and Darlene Clark Hine, eds. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from Sellers, Cleveland, and Robert Terrell. The River of No Return: the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954-1990. New York: Penguin, The Autobiography of a Black Militant and the Life and Death of 1991. SNCC. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 1990. Du Bois, Shirley Graham. “What Happened in Ghana.” Freedom- Shirley Graham Du Bois Papers: Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger ways, Summer 1966. Library on the History of Women in America, Harvard Uni- versity. Evans, Rowland, and Robert Novak, “Inside Report: Civil Rights— Danger Ahead,” The Washington Post, December 2, 1964, A21 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Papers (Microfilm), sec. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Web. 7 Feb. 2011. Accessed at Lamont Library, Harvard University. Forman, James. The Making of Black Revolutionaries. Seattle, WA: X, Malcolm, and Archie C. Epps, ed. The Speeches of Malcolm X at University of Washington Press, 1999. Harvard. New York: William Morrow, 1968. Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Secondary Scholarship: New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. Abbott, Dorothy, ed. Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Hamer, Fannie Lou. To Praise Our Bridges: An Autobiography. Youth. Vol. 4. Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1991. Jackson, Mississippi: KIPCO, 1967. Angelou, Maya. All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes. New York: Hampton, Henry, ed., Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Random House, 1986. Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s. New York: Bantam Books, 1990. Baraka, Amiri, and Larry Neal, eds. Black Fire: An Anthology of African-Americans Writing. New York: William Morrow, 1968. Holsaert, Faith S., Martha Prescod Norman Noonan, Judy Richard- son, Betty Garman Robinson, Jean Smith Young, and Dorothy Borstelmann, Thomas. The Cold War and the Color Line: American M. Zellner, eds. Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Ac- Race Relations in the Global Arena. Cambridge, MA: Harvard counts by Women in SNCC. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, University Press, 2001. 2010. Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65. Interview with Cleveland Sellers, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. October 21, 1988, for Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Ra- Breitman, George. The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a cial Crossroads 1965 to 1985. Washington University Libraries, Revolutionary. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1967. Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. Brooks, Viola M. Freedom Schools. Los Angeles: California State Interview with Ivanhoe Donaldson, conducted by Blackside, Inc. Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, 1965. in 1979, for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years Bunzel, John H. ed., Political Passages Journeys of Change Through Two (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Decades 1968-1988. New York: The Free Press, 1988. Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. Burner, Eric R. And Gently He Shall Lead Them: Robert Parris Moses Interview with Joseph Rauh, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on October and Civil Rights in Mississippi. New York: New York University 31, 1985, for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years Press, 1994. (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. Carmichael, Stokely. Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-African- ism. New York: Vintage Books, 1971. Interview with Lawrence Guyot, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on May 15, 1979, for Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Carmichael, Stokely, and Charles V. Hamilton. Black Power: The Years (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Politics of Liberation in America. New York: Random House, 1967. 56 Rudnick Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: SNCC and The Black Awakening of ------. Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black the 1960s. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Power in America. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2006. Clarke, John Henrik, A. Peter Bailey, and Earl Grant, eds. Malcolm Kelley, Robin D.G. “Stormy Weather: Reconstructing Black (Inter) X: The Man and His Times. New Jersey: Africa World, 1990. Nationalism in the Cold War Era,” in Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Du Bois, David Graham. And Bid Him Sing: A Novel. Palo Alto, ed., Is It Nation Time? Contemporary Essays on Black Power and CA: Ramparts Press, 1975. Black Nationalism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002, 67-90. Dudziak, Mary L. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, Kotz, Nick. Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther 2000. King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America. New York: Hough- ton Mifflin, 2005. Eagles, Charles W. “Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era.” The Journal of Southern History 66.4 (2000): 815-848. Lacy, Leslie Alexander. The Rise and Fall of a Proper Negro. New York: Macmillan, 1970. Evans, Sara. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York: Alfred A. Lawson, Steven F. “Freedom Then, Freedom Now: The Historiog- Knopf, 1979. raphy of the Civil Rights Movement.” The American Historical Review 96.2 (1991): 456-471. Finley, Randy. “Crossing the White Line: SNCC in Three Delta Towns, 1963–1967.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 65 (Summer Lee, Chana Kai. For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. 2006): 117–138. Urbana, IL, University of Illinois Press, 2000. Fleming, Cynthia Griggs. Soon We Will Not Cry: The Liberation of Lester, Julius. All is Well. New York: William Morrow, 1976. Ruby Doris Smith Robinson. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little- Levine, Daniel. Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement. New field, 1998. Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000. Gaines, Kevin K. American Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and Lewis, Andrew B. The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Era. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North the Civil Rights Generation. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009. Carolina Press, 2006. Meriwether, James H. Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the and Africa, 1935-1961. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: Perennial Carolina Press, 2002. Classics, 2004. Mills, Kay. This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Goldman, Peter. The Death and Life of Malcolm X. Urbana, IL: Uni- Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2007. versity of Illinois, 1979. Moses, Robert Parris, and Charles E. Cobb Jr. Radical Equations: Grant, Joanne. Ella Baker: Freedom Bound. New York: John Wiley & Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project. Boston: Sons, 1998. Beacon Press, 2001. Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn, ed. A Circle of Trust: Remembering SNCC. ------. Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights. Boston: New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Beacon Press, 2001. Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. “The Long Civil Rights Movement and Neary, John. Julian Bond: Black Rebel. New York: William Morrow, the Political Uses of the Past.” Journal of American History 91 1971. (March 2005): 1233-1262. Plummer, Brenda Gayle. Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. For- Hardy, Gayle J. American Women Civil Rights Activists: Biobibliogra- eign Affairs, 1935-1960. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North phies of 68 Leaders, 1825-1992. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993. Carolina Press, 1996. Hogan, Wesley C. Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a ------, ed. Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign New America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Affairs, 1945-1988. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Press, 2007. Carolina Press, 2003. Holt, Len. The Summer That Didn’t End. London: Heinemann, 1966. Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Houck, Davis W., and David E. Dixon, eds. Women and the Civil Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill, NC: University of Rights Movement, 1954-1965. Jackson: University Press of Mis- North Carolina Press, 2003. sissippi, 2009. Richards, Yevette. “African and African-American Labor Leaders Jackson, Esther Cooper, and Constance Pohl, eds. Freedomways in the Struggle over International Affiliation.” International Reader: Prophets in Their Own Country. Boulder, CO: West- Journal of African Historical Studies 31, no. 2 (1998): 301-34. view, 2000. Sales, William W. Jr. From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm Jalloh, Alusine, and Toyin Falola, eds. The United States and West X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Boston: South Africa Interactions and Relations. Rochester, NY: University of End Press, 1994. Rochester, 2008. Schmidt, Elizabeth. Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946- Joseph, Peniel E. The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil 1958. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007. Rights Black Power Era. New York: Routledge, 2006. ------. Mobilizing the Masses: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Rudnick 57 Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939-1958. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005. Singh, Nikhil Pal. Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Stoper, Emily. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: The Growth of Radicalism in a Civil Rights Organization. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson, 1989. Von Eschen, Penny M. Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. White, George, Jr. Holding the Line: Race, Racism, and American For- eign Policy Toward Africa, 1953-1961. Lanham, Maryland: Row- man and Littlefield, 2005. Wilkins, Fanon Che. “Beyond Bandung: The Critical Nationalism of Lorraine Hansberry, 1950-1965.” Radical History Review 95 (Spring 2006): 191-210. ------. “The Making of Black Internationalists: SNCC and Africa Before the Launching of Black Power, 1960-1965.” Journal of African American History 92, no. 4 (2007): 468-490. Zinn, Howard, SNCC: The New Abolitionists. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965. Biographies for the Authors of Slideshow

Michael Dango is majoring in English Language and Literature with minors in Physics and in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His feminist work grows from the belief that language matters in how we live our lives and that this is of special importance in the law. In addition to queer politics, his research interests include modernism and literary theory; his honors thesis in English is entitled, “Writing in Bed”: Naked, Ill, and Vulnerable Selfhoods in D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. At Washington University, he has also worked in Cornerstone as a writing mentor and in the Community Service Office as the coordinator of volunteer connections between the University and St. Louis area public schools, for instance founding multiple after-school programs at Brittany Woods Middle School led by John B. Ervin Scholars. He will remain at the University next year with a post-bac- calaureate fellowship in the digital humanities.

Betty Gibson, an Art History major with minors in French and German, became interested in gender, color, and decoration as a sophomore while taking a course focused on the art of fin-de-siècle France. She continues to be interested in gender-related art histori- cal topics, including representation of prostitutes in the paintings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and portrayals of women and family life in caricatures from the Belle Époque. Next year Betty will be working as a product consultant at Morningstar, Inc., an independent financial research firm in Chicago. In her free time, she enjoys training for half and full marathons, baking and cooking, and reading murder mysteries.

Howie Rudnick, born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a double major in History and Economics with a minor in Writing. He first became fascinated with the ideas and people of the American Civil Rights Movement as a freshman, introduced to the writings of Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael in a history course taught by Henry Berger. Marveling at the spectrum of philosophies and tac- tics that defined the movement, he often found himself reading the impassioned speeches of the era late into the night as his roommate lay sleeping. His project has since brought him to archives across the country and even as far as Accra, Ghana, to conduct research. During his time at Washington University, he has also been an active mem- ber of the Men’s Club Water Polo team as well as a Disk Jockey at KWUR, the campus radio station. He would like to thank his mentor, Jean Allman, and the entire Merle Kling Undergraduate Honors Fel- lowship without whose guidance and support this project would not have been possible.

59

The Inquiry

foreword

We [the American people] can, within a ten-year span, pro- extending to everyone—every family deserves a good home; vide decent housing for every family, make adequate jobs avail- good health care is a necessity for all; poverty should be able for every able-bodied person, provide the kind of education abolished for everyone and so on. Therefore, it is entirely fit- that each child is able to absorb, make accessible medical care for ting that the program, dedicated to remedying “the serious all, abolish poverty and malnutrition, and permit each man to shortage of faculty of color in higher education,”2 bears the advance on his merit without his being penalized because he is name of Dr. Mays as a tribute to his commitment to equity black. and justice. President John F. Kennedy could predict that in ten years As one of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s “premier we would place a man on the moon, and his prophecy came programs,”3 the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship true […]. If we can set a timetable to get to the moon […] God Program provides college juniors and seniors, particularly knows we can set a timetable to build a more just society. It’s a those from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, with matter of national will and commitment. It is also a matter of the opportunity to explore what it means to be a scholar individual responsibility. and professor. Working on their own independent research 1 ––Dr. Benjamin E. Mays projects with advice and guidance from expert faculty Several years ago, the Mellon Undergraduate Fellowship mentors, the Fellows form an intellectual community in a took on the name of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays (1894-1984) special seminar that they attend for the two years they are to become the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship in the program. They present their work, offer each other (MMUF) Program. Dr. Mays, a scholar and an activist, feedback on their writing, refine their own research and was an outspoken and articulate critic of segregation and ideas, and hear from guest speakers who provide informa- an early mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A dedi- tion about everything from how to apply to graduate school cated intellectual, for many years he served as the president to networking in an academic environment. The Fellows at of Morehouse College, the renowned historically black Washington University also belong to a national network of college for men in Atlanta, Georgia. As illustrated in his Fellows from other participating colleges and universities words above, he possessed a clear and determined vision for with whom they will have the opportunity to meet during American society, a vision forged as he struggled against or after their fellowship years. As of July 2010, approxi- the inequalities and oppression faced by black citizens in mately 3,500 undergraduate students representing 25 co- the U.S. Though his particular experiences with injus- horts have been selected as Mellon Mays Fellows national- tice and vision for equality were shaped by his being an ly. Since its inception in 1993, the MMUF at Washington African-American man, the passage above indicates that University has helped inspire and prepare many students to the reach of his vision for a “just society” was universal, pursue PhDs. To date, fifteen of our alumni have obtained 63. PhDs and another twenty are currently enrolled in PhD fails to capture, the lived experiences and complex person- programs, in schools such as Yale, Columbia, the University alities of women who performed acts of extreme violence. of Pennsylvania, the University of Maryland, and Emory. In effect, this literature performs discursive violence on This year’s five graduating MMUF seniors, whose work these women by narrowly portraying their actions within appears in this journal, will join a prestigious group of Mel- traditional, gendered war roles—those of resister and lon Mays alumni, greatly enriching the pool of promising peacekeeper. Finally, Monica Smith’s essay analyzes the junior scholars to join the ranks of academia. implementation of the GI Bill of 1944, in order to expose As the Faculty Facilitators of the weekly seminars, it has the ways in which the benefits of supposedly “colorblind” been our honor to work with the MMUF students. We legislation were meted out differently to whites and blacks. cherish working with the Fellows not only because they are Focusing on higher education in particular, Smith argues talented, motivated, and intellectually independent but also that state and local authorities, who were often given re- because they embody the spirit of Dr. Mays. Their research sponsibility for implementation, subverted the ability of Af- projects are based in a host of disciplines, but a unifying rican-Americans to take advantage of the bill’s provisions. theme of their articles is a critique of society. By a “critique We may not yet have achieved Dr. Mays’s vision for a of society” we mean a careful and thoughtful reflection on “just” nation or world, but we are encouraged that our how representations and social processes work to establish, Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows, who are capable of maintain, and justify the racial/ethnic and socioeconomic producing such profound and productive critiques of the status quo but also to perpetuate a form of “structural world around them, are on the case. We present to you violence,” or systemic ways in which social structures or their impressive work! institutions impede progress. These structural issues must Shanti A. Parikh, PhD be recognized and addressed in order to achieve social Associate Professor of Anthropology and African & justice and equity, goals that were at the core of Dr. Mays’s African American Studies intellectual pursuits. MMUF Academic Coordinator We are pleased to briefly introduce you to our seniors’ Washington University in St. Louis research projects, as represented by the articles in this vol- Joseph D. Thompson, PhD ume. Kimberly Daily’s research investigates the political Senior Lecturer in African & African American Studies climate motivating various anti-Affirmative Action ballot Educational Archivist for Film and Media initiatives that have adopted the rhetoric of the Civil Rights MMUF Academic Coordinator Movement. Drawing on theories that connect the issues of Washington University in St. Louis race, power, wealth, and justice, Daily defends Affirmative Action as a corrective measure to address past injustice. In her article, Naia Ferguson uses socio-linguistic theory and analysis to explore the polysemous use of the word “nigga” 1 Benjamin E. Mays, Born to Rebel: An Autobiography. With a Revised Foreword by Orville Vernon Burton (Athens: University as deployed by the main characters in the animated series of Georgia Press, 2003), 321. The Boondocks. Ferguson demonstrates how the creator’s 2 From The Andrew W. Mellon website: http://www.mellon.org/ strategic use of the word “nigga” can be read as a wider grant_programs/programs/higher-education-and-scholarship/ social critique of the American culture and race relations mellon-mays-fellowship#Diversity (accessed April 18, 2011). in the U.S. Thomas Herandez conducted ethnographic 3 Ibid. research and interviews in the Republic of Azerbaijan for his Mellon Mays project. Drawing upon his research, Herandez applies anthropological theories and critiques of development to illuminate the unintended consequences of non-governmental “transparency” programs that are promoted by international donors. Rather than achieving their intended goal of decreasing state corruption, Heran- dez argues that these programs often work to promote a problematic “Sovietization of the mind.” In her article, Maria Santos develops a feminist critique of what she calls “Senderologist literature”—or, scholarly writings about the Shining Path, the Maoist insurgent guerrilla organization in Peru (1980-2000). Santos argues that the Senderologist literature is analytically ill-equipped to deal with, and thus 64 Meet Me at the Crossroads: A Revitalized Analysis of Race, Preference, and Affirmative Action

Kimberly L. Daily

Abstract: This paper brings to light and analyzes the social and political forces that paved the way for affirmative action policies and California’s Proposition 209 to change the social policy landscape of America. As the United States faces increased economic challenges, terms such as “merit,” “preferential treatment,” and “colorblindness” saturate our political vocabulary. Thus it is critical that we gain a more textured understanding of the policy streams that allowed for the introduction of Civil Rights Initiatives into our public consciousness. Analyzing the particular policymaking episode that allowed for radical transformations in public higher education policies, this paper argues that the adoption of California Proposition 209 was the result of conservative voters’ perceptions of competition for jobs and higher education opportunities.

Introduction discriminatory practice, adopted to correct or compensate for past or present discrimination or to prevent discrimina- n 1996, the state of California passed Proposition 209, tion from recurring in the future.” Although the formal otherwise known as the California Civil Rights Initia- definition has not changed, the understanding of affirma- Itive. This groundbreaking ballot initiative made illegal any tive action as programs designed to affirm the civil rights of consideration of race, sex, or ethnicity in California public socially and politically marginalized groups has. In the past institutions, effectively dismantling all existing federal decade, a handful of Civil Rights Initiatives (CRIs) have affirmative action policies in the state. More explicitly, the gained traction in the national political arena. In addition to “civil rights” proposal mandated that “the state shall not Proposition 209 and the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any Washington’s I-200 proposal passed in 1998, while Nebras- individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnic- ka’s I-424 passed and Colorado’s CRI failed in 2008. ity, or national origin in the operation of public employ- 1 Confronted with a fluctuating trend towards the rever- ment, public education, or public contracting.” sal of social policies and legal advancements that benefit In essence, Proposition 209 claimed to put an end to historically and contemporary marginalized groups, I “preference programs” and usher in a new era of “equal propose to bring to light and analyze the social and politi- opportunity” in the state of California. One decade later, cal forces that paved the way for affirmative action policies in 2006, the state of Michigan followed suit, passing and and California’s Proposition 209 to change the social policy implementing a similar pronouncement of social policy landscape of America. As the United States faces increased reform. Proposal 2, more commonly referred to as the economic challenges, terms such as “merit”, “preferential Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, amended Michigan’s state treatment”, and “colorblindness” saturate our political vo- constitution to delegitimize and invalidate its affirmative cabulary. This, I hope, is a more textured understanding of action policies. Co-opting language from the Civil Rights th the civil rights tension that has allowed the introduction of Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection clause of the 14 anti-affirmative action initiatives into our public conscious- amendment, each of these proposals successfully abated the ness. Analyzing the particular policymaking episode that consideration of race and gender, among other factors, in allowed for radical transformations in public higher educa- hiring practices and higher education admissions. tion policies, I argue that the adoption of California Propo- Maintaining that “no state shall…deny to any person sition 209 was the result of conservative voters’ perceptions within its jurisdiction, equal protection of the law,” Thomas of competition for jobs and higher education opportunities. Wood and Glynn Custred, architects of the anti-affirmative I hypothesize that in California, in particular, social poli- action ballot initiative, relied heavily on the legal status cies benefiting underrepresented racial groups are compro- quo established by previous legislation. In 1977, the United mised when a majority of white voters’ social and political States Commission on Civil Rights defined affirmative rights are perceived as under threat. In the larger realm of action as “any measure, beyond simple termination of a referendum politics, research shows that this phenomenon Daily 65 is not exclusive to solely race-based issues and rights.2 Most “tell me what cha gonna do when there ain’t no where to legislation directed towards underrepresented groups tends to hide//when judgment comes for you, ‘cause it’s gonna come be marginalized in a ballot initiative system. This legislation for you,” we are ushered into California, often referred to includes, but is not limited to: gay rights, immigration re- as the hotbed for controversial politics. As the Bone Thugs form, bilingual education, welfare, as well as affirmative -ac cry out, “see you at the crossroads so you won’t be lonely//see tion. In other words, if voters are voting for their preference you at the crossroads so you won’t be lonely,” I am reminded in the initiative system, then the preference of the majority of the fact that the steps California takes in policy reform group will prevail; underrepresented groups or minorities are usually duplicated by other states. Consider the follow- have little chance of translating their preferences into policy. ing: in the eight months after California’s Proposition 209 As Kimberlé Crenshaw asserts, we are charged with the re- was proposed, twenty states moved on bills or resolutions to sponsibility of rethinking “the mystifying role of law in natu- limit affirmative action, with fifteen of them copying Cali- ralizing and insulating the status quo.”3 In investigating this fornia’s Civil Rights Initiative word for word.5 In particular, issue on what was the existing state of affairs pre-Proposition California serves as a key state in this anti-affirmative action 209, “Meet Me at the Crossroads” offers insights into the analysis because its initiative and reform system allows effect of the framing of affirmative action on the American citizens to propose amendments to the state constitution by public, the increasing inclination to use socioeconomic status a simple collection of signatures. as a legal proxy for race, and the political viability of college Widely criticized for using the initiative process to punish and university affirmative action policies. racial and ethnic minorities,6 California represents one of Moving beyond the simplistic determination of whether the great liberties of the democratic process: the transforma- affirmative action policies are “good” or “bad” and gaining a tion of personal opinion into political power. In its barest deeper understanding of the political environment in which form, a ballot proposition allows for the near direct transla- they are situated, this article investigates the shifting politi- tion of public opinion into social policy, as these initiatives cal conditions under which higher education affirmative depend largely on the personal preference of the majority action policies were introduced into American policy, legiti- of voters. In 1996, 54.5% of California voters supported mized through a promulgation of race-conscious policies, Proposition 209. Another factor influencing California’s and ultimately challenged. I chose to use this particular bal- importance in staging political reform is reflected in the fact lot proposition, California’s Proposition 209, because it was that California has relatively recently become a majority- the first of its kind to reach a statewide ballot. I understand minority state. Not only does California’s ethnic makeup that a more comprehensive study of all five Civil Rights reflect that projected for the rest of the country, but also Initiatives that reached the ballot, as well as anti-affirmative it presents a beautiful paradox with the argument that the action initiatives in all fifty states may be more beneficial. preferences of the presumable white majority outweigh However, the scope of such an undertaking is outside the those of the non-white minority. Of course, in the context range of this project. As we investigate how policymakers of a majority-minority state, this argument is complicated were able to embed anti-affirmative action proposals into by who holds political power in the most meaningful places. the policy agenda, we stand to gain a wealth of knowledge about referendum politics, social policy, and public opinion ♫“And we pray and we pray and we pray, on racial issues in America. everyday, everyday, everyday”♫ California: The Nexus of Political uch of the existing literature on affirmative action Crossroads deals with issues of its legitimacy as a set of social policies,M questioning and debating whether or not such 7 he title of this article, “Meet Me at the Crossroads,” is policies are necessary in the post-Civil Rights era. With derived from a 1995 song entitled, “Tha Crossroads,” specific regard to the aforementioned ballot proposals, much byT Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, a Grammy-award winning hip attention is understandably given to explore the impact the hop music group.4 Though seemingly out of line with the CRIs have had on minority groups’ access to higher educa- focus of this article, the song’s message actually speaks of tion. Most notably, contemporary scholarship has fostered an intersection, often marked with strife, where a critical national dialogue addressing the necessity of affirmative ac- decision must be made. Packed with refreshing contra- tion in a purportedly post-racial society. As Ira Katznelson dictions—soft instrumentals with a quick tone, a deeply eloquently summarizes in his 2006 book When Affirmative spiritual lesson in the midst of despair, good will in nega- Action Was White: tive circumstances, and old school music with a new school Unresolved and unsatisfactory, debate seems almost message—“Tha Crossroads” eloquently captures the center endless between advocates of reparations and de- of any politically charged conflict. As the song opens with, fenders of non-discrimination and equal treatment 66 Daily who often seem blind to the organizing power of America’s most vulnerable populations—the elderly—these race in American life. In effect, broad and often un- programs signaled landmark advancements in the history of focused claims for restoration have competed with public and social policy in the United States. anti-racist principles that direct us to racial neutral- Many of these new social policies, however, served to ity…Those of us who think the work of affirmative bolster an already established hierarchy of power among the 8 action is incomplete need to bolster our case. races in America, this time with much more subtlety. As Ira Though recent scholarship has shed light on the broader Katznelson details in When Affirmative Action Was White, claims for and against racialized social policies, few scholars though not specifically targeting racial minorities, these have interrogated the particular contexts that engendered national government interventions resulted in a flourish- these Civil Rights Initiatives. An investigation of these ing white middle class, while most African-Americans were circumstances could elucidate the role that prejudice, or mis- systematically excluded from enjoying the benefits conferred information in general, plays in shaping public policy. upon their fellow Americans. For example, while the cre- This case study proceeds in three parts. To begin, I pres- ation of Social Security and minimum wage laws benefited a ent a brief historical analysis of affirmative action policies, significant number of the American labor force, agricultural delineating the legacy of racialized social policies in the and domestic workers were, by legislation, denied these ben- United States. By “racialized,” I am referring to the ten- efits. Though this exclusion did not explicitly designate race, dency for social policy to be classified by the racial group nearly 75% of African-Americans lived in the South, where perceived to benefit most from it. Because history and legal they were mostly employed in agriculture and as domestic precedent play a vital role in social policies, it is critical that workers. This fact signals the impact that social policy can have in ameliorating or exacerbating race-based divisions in we understand the context in which affirmative action has 10 integrated itself into the fabric of American social policy. America. Then, I enter into the conversation on ballot initiatives with Similarly, policies such as the Serviceman’s Readjustment a review of extant literature, highlighting common under- Act of 1944, otherwise known as the G.I. Bill, transformed standings of the referendum process in the discipline. The economic, social, and political benefits for war veterans. third section establishes an argument on the impact that Specifically designed to help over 10 million veterans re- media framing has on social policy, specifically affirma- enter American life and eventually, the workforce, without tive action. To many, affirmative action can be viewed as disrupting the economy, the Bill delegated power at the the education arm of welfare policy, or any other racial- state, rather than federal level. As it provided veterans the ized government program. In other words, it is perceived opportunity to acquire an education, gain technical train- as undeserved handouts to unqualified non-white students. ing, utilize medical benefits and learn other skills that As such, its depiction in the media plays an integral part in would help them gradually enter the workforce, the G.I. constructing voter preferences. Lastly, this paper concludes Bill was described as the “greatest single piece of social with a discussion of the ramifications of California’s Propo- legislation” and a landmark policy that “cut across economic 11 sition 209, arguing that social policies that are directed strata.” This legislation, however, left African-Americans towards marginalized groups are compromised when the particularly vulnerable to the caprice of local administra- political desires of the median voter are threatened.9 The tors. Theoretically, the aforementioned policies should have evidence I present is consistent with the notion that under helped all Americans, but as implementation was delegated strained economic and political conditions, policies that to the state level, administrators systematically excluded largely benefit racial minority groups are retrenched in favor African-Americans, resulting in race-based advantages in 12 of those that maintain the status quo and reinforce white public and social policies for white Americans. When, privilege in the United States. however, social policies deal explicitly with issues of race and discrimination, they are highlighted and designated Before Affirmative Action Was Black affirmative action. As African-Americans were denied uring the 1930s, President Roosevelt’s New Deal the benefits that an ostensibly colorblind policy meant to programs heralded unprecedented changes and renew- provide them, we are given a compelling example of how alsD in American public policy. As America made concerted affirmative action-esque policies have shaped our political, efforts to recover from the Great Depression, policies and economic, and social realities. programs like federal Social Security and the Works Prog- Entering the Conversation: Minority Interests, ress Administration were created to reform the American Proposition 209, and Direct Democracy welfare and ensure that society would be protected from tremendous collapses in the economy. Focusing on relief n The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Col- for the poor and unemployed, and assistance to one of orblindness, legal scholar Michelle Alexander boldly and I Daily 67 Zhou vigorously argues that when thinking about a system of ra- of California eligibility rates decreased across the board cial caste in the United States, we have not ended it. Rather, for Latino, black, and Asian students, and remained the she attests, we have merely redesigned it. She explains: same for white students. As he details these rising bar- The emergence of each new system of control may riers, Pusser discusses the impact that Proposition 209 seem sudden, but history shows that the seeds are had on the policymaking relationship between political planted long before each new institution begins branches and higher education institutions and officials, to grow…While it is generally believed that the noting the blurred lines that were beginning to develop as backlash against the Civil Rights Movement is each branch fought for control over the decision-making defined primarily by the rollback of affirmative process. According to Pusser, immediately after Proposition action and the undermining of federal civil rights 209 passed, the Republican Party enjoyed brief victories legislation by a hostile judiciary, the seeds of the until the aftermath of Prop. 209 set in and the Democratic new system of control—mass incarceration—were Party was able to rise in prominence in response to voter planted during the Civil Rights Movement itself, dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, Pusser expunges the notion when it became clear that the old caste system was that Proposition 209 increased the power of the Republican crumbling and a new one would have to take its Party as he explains the critical impact Proposition 209 had place. With each reincarnation of racial caste, the on both student access to higher education and the politics new system, as sociologist Loic Wacquant puts it, of access policy. “is less total, less capable of encompassing and con- At the same time, Pusser and other scholars note, as eli- trolling the entire race.” However, any notion that gibility rates for minority students were rapidly decreasing this evolution reflects some kind of linear progress (2% of blacks were eligible for admission to the University is misguided.13 of California whereas 51% of white students were), “the Here, Alexander cogently articulates some of the nuances passage of Proposition 209 made [admissions] consider- of political control. Although the correlation between mass ably more difficult. Neither the CSU system nor California incarceration and affirmative action is loose, the presence community colleges had been using affirmative action in of political power predicated upon caste systems is deeply their admissions processes, yet both were concerned about a possible decline in the enrollment of racial/ethnic minority interwoven into the social fabric of America. And though 16 labeling our current system of American governance “The students after Proposition 209.” Thus, as Pusser notes, the New Jim Crow” is risky, such a paradigm shift is necessary University Of California Board Of Regents were actually for us to fully consider the realities of the impact of Proposi- the first to adopt Proposition 209. One prominent member tion 209. of this board, Ward Connerly, established the American Civil Rights Institute, the organization behind “Civil In The States and Public Higher Education Policy: Afford- Rights Initiatives.” The California decision, because of the ability, Access, and Accountability, Donald E. Heller and weight of social, political, and economic authority that the other educational scholars offer a rich set of perspectives on regents have, influenced the state’s response to the ballot the cost, educational access obstacles, and policy issues that initiative. Pusser reminds: obscure, rather than enhance, a student’s ability to obtain a university education.14 In a thorough discussion of the The UC system is one of the state’s largest employ- interplay between these three factors, Heller argues that as ers, and it receives annual general funding of more the cost of tuition rises nationwide, states constrain finan- than $2 billion. UC policy has significant state and national visibility and symbolic and practical politi- cial resources, increasing the difficulty of accessing higher 17 education. Further complicating these issues is affirma- cal value. tive action, which, as posited by Heller, fits weakly in the Clearly articulated here is the critical intersection of civil institutional politics of higher education. Similarly, from an rights boiled in the same container with a constitutionally education policymaking perspective, Brian Pusser cogently autonomous institution (the University of California system). details the political climate surrounding California and the According to a report by the 1971 Carnegie Commis- 15 passage of Proposition 209. To begin, Pusser discusses sion on Higher Education, forty states, California included, the depth of issues blocking access to higher education in confer corporate powers on their higher education boards California pre-Proposition 209. At the time, Pusser notes, and allow those boards wide latitude in educational policy access to California colleges and universities was decreasing making and fund disbursement. Pusser explains: as tuition rates rose; rising SAT scores made for more quali- Given UC’s constitutionally autonomous status, fied students than available seats; and the state’s new efforts the length of terms of the regents, and the high at financing tuition proved less effective than before. cost of monitoring their actions, the confirma- Between 1990 and 1996, for example, the University tion dynamic for the regents’ appointment process 68 Daily should follow the agenda control model. Although In essence, Hicklin’s data reveals that the restrictions of both the governor and the legislature can take such race-based admissions do not push minority students out measures as cutting UC’s budget if it moves in of higher education; rather, they usher these students into directions contrary to legislative preference, such less selective universities. Therefore, according to Hicklin, measures risk very public exposure and challenges the impact of Proposition 209 is redistribution, not reduc- from university supporters.18 tion in minority student populations. Here, Hicklin narrowly As a result of Proposition 209, though, Latino and African- concludes that the consequences of Proposition 209 are mas- American enrollment at California’s highest performing sively overstated, and what we are witnessing is a political public universities has decreased significantly. In some reshuffling of the deck, with students “falling in place” where cases, for the freshman class entering in the fall of 1997, the they belong according to merit. African-American enrollment was at or above 50% less than Another body of literature, led by University of Michi- before the enactment of Proposition 209.19 Though propo- gan’s Elisabeth Gerber, suggests that ballot initiatives have nents of Proposition 209 cite the rise in graduation rates the potential to undermine the rights and interests of under- for these minority students, implying a more qualified post represented minorities. These researchers (Hajnal, Gerber, Proposition 209 student body, the initiative has profoundly and Louch) however, contend that the detrimental effects 22 affected minorities’ access to higher education. of the referendum process have been overemphasized. Another body of literature, and in particular, work by With a holistic view of all California ballot initiatives and Alisa Hicklin,20 uses a rational choice framework to test the propositions, Gerber argues that, overall, racial and eth- widespread claims that surfaced post Proposition 209 about nic minorities win on more ballots than they lose. With the effect that affirmative action, or the absence thereof, this argument in mind, these scholars maintain that ballot had on higher education admissions. Using data from 1990 initiatives present a unique dynamic in which the rights to 2000 from all public universities that were bound by and preferences of all groups have the potential to be lost in Proposition 209, Hicklin concludes that the marked shifts translation. Speaking against the idea of the “tyranny of the in minority enrollment stem not from affirmative action majority” Gerber and researchers attest that current research policies, per se, but largely from selectivity of an institu- ignores the fact that, taken together, the vast majority of tion. From the perspective of bounded rationality, where direct legislation measures are less racially detrimental than managers act under the assumption that all other actors will we think. Even considering “the passage of several high- behave rationally, Hicklin approaches the affirmative action profile initiatives including California’s Proposition 187 phenomena from a concertedly objective standpoint. (which denied social services to illegal immigrants and their children), Proposition 209... and Proposition 227 (which By equating university administrators to “public manag- dismantled bilingual education),” Gerber maintains that ers,” the university to a bureaucratic agency, and students as with less than 5% of statewide initiatives focusing explicitly consumers of public goods, Hicklin boils down the affirma- on racial minority groups, this entire conversation has been tive action debate into an evaluation of supply and demand. de-contextualized and made to appear like something it is Hicklin establishes that from the perspective of bounded not. Though it is true that nationwide, initiatives that curtail rationality, the burden of reduced minority enrollment lies or undermine civil rights pass more regularly than other not in higher education policies, but in K-12 education and types of initiatives,23 Hajnal, Gerber, and Louch conclude the states’ funding of public higher education. She notes: that the negative impact of ballot initiatives has been vastly Restricting the use of race in admissions leads to overstated. The problem, they suggest, is that research only a 5.5% drop in minority enrollment over 10 years looks at implicitly racial issues, rather than all political is- for the most selective universities (i.e. UCLA, sues which inevitably have race-based consequences. UC-Berkeley), a 3.5% drop in the highly selective In many ways, Hajnal, Gerber, and Louch’s analysis of- universities (i.e. UT, Texas A&M), and a 1% drop fers a relieving perspective in the conversation on minority in more selective universities (i.e. LSU, Mississippi rights and ballot propositions. At the same time, however, State). For the other universities, this restriction this viewpoint effectively clouds our understanding of the on using race would result in a 1% increase in the interplay between race, preference, and political action, somewhat selective universities (i.e. University specifically, affirmative action in higher education. On the of New Orleans, University of Houston), a 3.3% issues that materially affect their lives, racial and ethnic increase in the less selective universities (i.e. San minorities are losing, consistently. It is from this angle that Francisco State, University of Southwestern Loui- I enter into the conversation, examining and arguing for the siana), and a 5% increase in the nonselective uni- urgency of rethinking this potential racial caste system. In versities (i.e. University of Texas at Tyler, Northeast essence, my argument is not an explicit critique of the ballot Louisiana State).21 Daily 69 Zhou initiative system, or the process of direct democracy. Rather, policies are fundamentally concentrated on race, ethnicity, I am asking that we as voting members of the American and sex, rather than socioeconomic status. Though funding public have the boldness to recognize our personal biases in undoubtedly weighs heavily in the conversation on affirma- the ostensible pursuit of democracy and equal rights. tive action, states do not set budgets for affirmative action The Politics of Preferential Treatment policies, though many budgeted policies employ them. For example, as states set aside money for the funding of higher According to the United States Census Bureau, in 1996 education, public colleges and universities allocate funds California ranked number four on the list of states with the towards the recruitment and retention of underprivileged highest civilian labor force unemployment rate.24 While the minority groups. In California, specifically, state-funded percentage of unemployed had decreased from 9.5% in 1993 universities average 3% black student populations. Private to 7.2% in 1996, competition for jobs remained a salient fac- universities such as Stanford, however, consistently keep tor during 1996 election year. Led by Republican governor their black student population at 10%, a feat largely accom- Pete Wilson, California faced an even greater amount of plished by the monetary resources allocated towards student pressure from conservatives to mitigate and alleviate the recruitment and retention. As demonstrated in this case, economic effects of the high unemployment rate. A January we must acknowledge that public higher education policies 1996, nation-wide USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll demon- (affirmative action included) are inextricably linked to the strated that only 28% of the 1000 people polled reported distribution of public resources. Therefore, they are subject that the current economic conditions were good. On the to the “priorities and incentives—explicit and implicit—that 29 contrary, 47% reported that they were “only fair,” and 23% affect government’s support of priorities and institutions.” responded that they were bad. In addition, when asked if Included in these priorities and incentives are the prefer- they thought the economic conditions in the United States ences of the voting population, which are easier to gauge in were improving or worsening, 50% of those polled an- state-level policy initiatives than in nation-wide policies. swered that they were staying the same while 36% reported Familiar with public opinion polls and the work of that they were getting worse. Finally, to the question: “In Sniderman and Piazza in The Scar of Race, Thomas Wood general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things and Glynn Custred knew that Californians supported are going in the United States at this time?” 72% responded the idea of affirmative action programs, but were explic- that they were dissatisfied, while 24% responded that they itly against racial set-asides, preference, or quota systems. were satisfied.25 Armed with this knowledge, Wood and Custred framed Thus, in the 1996 elections, politicians, policy entrepre- Proposition 209 in terms of ending preference and forging neurs, and other public officials held the responsibility of the path for equal opportunity. In the economically and alleviating the public’s concern about the increasing barri- politically unstable period leading up to the victory of the ers to a public university education, among other factors, as anti-affirmative action ballot initiative in California, public the cost of tuition rose to compensate for a readjustment in opinion surveys illustrated that middle class Californians the state budget.26 Each of these issues was further intensi- felt particularly vulnerable to the increased competition for 30 fied by the media-infused notion that minority students, higher education. To assess this vulnerability, I conducted particularly Latino and African-American students, were a study of all news articles in major U.S. publications be- given preferential treatment in college admissions because tween November 1, 1995, and November 5, 1996, that dealt of affirmative action policies. This notion of preferential substantively (mentioned the topic at least 5 times) with the treatment, however, skews the truth behind affirmative ac- issue of affirmative action. Of the 1,721 articles (editorials tion policies: in employment practices, white women are the and opinion pieces excluded) in the LexisNexis Academic primary beneficiaries and affirmative action does not involve Database, 799 (46.4%) grouped affirmative action programs admitting under-qualified applicants.27 In the public conver- with preferential treatment, suggesting that they were sation surrounding the 1996 elections, beyond gender, class, unfair handout programs. In addition, 189 (10.9%) articles political affiliations, or level of education, race surfaced as used the two terms (“affirmative action” and “preferential the greatest impediment to equality of opportunity in access treatment”) interchangeably. As titles such as the Washing- to higher education.28 ton Times’s “Pernicious Racial Preferences” and the Houston Chronicle’s “White House Shelves Set-Aside Programs; How Social Policy Gets Colored Preferences Helped Minorities, Women” infiltrated the fficially introduced under President John F. Kennedy’s discussion on affirmative action, these policies came to Executive Order 10925 in 1961, affirmative action be viewed by many as a hand-out program for minorities, Ohas left an indelible imprint on American social policy particularly African-Americans. Words such as “perni- history. Unlike many social policies, affirmative action cious,” “preferences,” and “set-aside programs” literally and 70 Daily metaphorically color the conversation on affirmative action. the enactment of Proposition 209.35 Though proponents of As Martin Gilens posits, “when we are trying to understand Proposition 209 cite the rise in graduation rates for these popular opposition to welfare, public perceptions are more minority students, implying a more qualified post-Proposi- important than demographic realities.”31 In other words, tion-209 student body, the initiative has profoundly affected politically speaking, people act on what they perceive, re- minorities’ access to higher education. gardless of whether or not that is reality. As Gilens’ insights As a compelling alternative to affirmative action, many pertain to welfare, this conflation of affirmative action with policymakers of all races support the idea that we should unfair advantage for African-Americans has permeated our enact mean-tested, colorblind affirmative action policies. In consciousness, resulting in a misconception of policy that other words, admission to colleges and universities should has great influence in the mind of voters. be more contingent on socio-economic status than race. To further illustrate this effect on voters, consider the Jan- Such policies will, legislatively, be fairer to all races by not uary 27, 2005, cover of Newsweek magazine. Newsweek, the privileging any race, white or black. The argument contin- second largest weekly news magazine in the United States, ues: much of our country’s present issues of inequality and featured a young, fair-skinned, professionally dressed, disparity stem from class issues, rather than racial discrimi- glasses-wearing African-American male with the question, nation. Thus, class-based affirmative action would have “Do We Still Need Affirmative Action?” superimposed the greatest effect on restructuring both our economy and over his image.32 The accompanying article, “10 Ways to our politics of power in the United States. Prima facie, this Think About It Now” offered an analysis of how affirmative logic is alluring as it upholds the American value of justice action policies were like an African-American entitlement as fairness and promotes the improvement of the American program, unfairly advantaging African-Americans over welfare state. A 2006 study on redistribution and affirma- other qualified applicants. As John Kingdon notes, “through tive action by David Austen-Smith and Michael Waller- the framing or manipulation of policy… policy entrepre- stein, however, argues that issues of race weaken support for neurs attempt to satisfy preconceived notions” of race-based social policy expenditures, even when voters’ preferences are social policy issues.33 Though Newsweek does not constitute considered colorblind: a policy entrepreneur, the newsmagazine does play a role While blacks always prefer some affirmative action in shaping public opinion. The Newsweek example, featur- policy to the laissez faire level at any benefit level, ing an intelligent, light-skinned, and affluent looking black in general whites might prefer no affirmative action man, highlights the ability of policy framing to manipulate or some modicum thereof. Unlike blacks, whites voter’s ideas and opinions. Rather than conventional damage face a tradeoff: at any laissez faire level…whites imagery, per se, this picture more accurately represents dam- benefit from the efficiency gains induced by small aged imagery. That is, the flawed notion that because there levels of affirmative action (Lemma 2(5)) but are are a number of African-American political leaders, business hurt by the distributional losses that such action owners, and exemplars of the American Dream, affirmative implies for the majority group.36 action has achieved the purpose it was designed for and can, More specifically, Austen-Smith and Wallerstein’s research is therefore, be dismantled. This problem with this ideology, consistent with the argument that people who have histori- however, is that there have always been and always will be cally held more privilege in the United States than other successful leaders of non-white ethnic backgrounds. As Mi- groups are reluctant to accept policies that may infringe on chelle Alexander attests, we have always had free and suc- that power. In accordance with the median voter theorem, cessful blacks, but that does not negate the fact that a racial the most politically wise decision to make regarding affirma- caste system could actually exist.34 Had the student appeared tive action is to either restructure the policies so that no one less “well-off,” viewers likely would have shifted back to group’s political status is compromised or end the policies their notions about affirmative action being a handout pro- altogether. Because the former argument proves exceptionally gram. With this image of success in the black community, difficult in the national arena, opponents of affirmative action however, viewers are prompted to consider whether or not lean towards the latter argument. affirmative action should persist, in light of its successes. The trouble with both of the above propositions, however, On Class-Based Affirmative Action is that they rest on the assumption that the United States has reached, or has asymptotically approached, a state of racial s a result of Proposition 209, Latino and African- equilibrium where race is no longer the most salient barrier American enrollment at California’s highest perform- to equality of opportunity. When Chief Justice John Roberts ingA public universities has decreased significantly. In some pronounced in 2007 that “the way to stop discrimination on cases, for the freshman class entering in the fall of 1997, the the basis of race was to stop discriminating on the basis of African-American enrollment was over 50% less than before race,” he effectively articulated the ideology that opened the Daily 71 policy window for Proposition 209. In the past two decades, product of a fair system. Arguing that no blatant infringe- policymakers have tried to eschew the issue of race because ments in one’s liberty to pursue education exist, we may try of the polarizing effect it has in the political, social, and to dismantle affirmative action policies because they appear economic realms. These color-blind and race-neutral efforts, to preference one group of people over another. As Mills though reasonably grounded in laudable intentions, have exhorts us to “[rid] ourselves of class and gender bias, com- effectively diminished the significance of race in political ing to recognize as political what we had previously thought rhetoric, as well as in access to educational and professional of as apolitical or personal…looking with new eyes at the programs, erasing the race-laden context of politics. Fur- old world around us,” we must not fail to acknowledge the thermore, the idea of a class-based scheme of affirmative Racial Contract under which we all live and operate.42 To action undermines the original motivation for it: to redress do so would be complicit with or would explicitly perpetu- or prevent discrimination on the basis of race. While race ate race-based stratifications in education and thus further and class are truly inextricably linked,37 affirmative action our unjust racial order. In accordance with Rawls’ principles was designed to address primarily race-based issues. of justice, each member of society, regardless of race, “is to As Kam and Nam established, as resources become more have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of basic constrained, government support flows into places and liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for 43 people where the assistance is projected to yield the greatest others.” Affirmative action provides the framework neces- returns.38 In the context of higher education policy, middle sary for ensuring access to this “extensive scheme.” class Americans, who have had greater access to better K-12 education, among other resources, are those to whom 1 California Constitution, art. 1, sec. 31. resources will be dispensed. We have seen how, when the 2 Elizabeth Gerber, “Legislative Response to the Threat of pre-existing social structure is threatened, programs and Popular Initiatives,” American Journal of Political Science 40, policies that target marginalized groups are compromised.39 no. 1 (1996): 99-128. Indeed, because of the interplay between underrepresented 3 Kimberle W. Crenshaw, “Framing Affirmative Action,” minorities, the initiative system, and public policy that is Michigan Law Review 105 (2007): 5. endemic in our society, it is crucial to note that such actions 4 Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. “Tha Crossroads.” E. 1999 Eternal. CD. Ruthless Records, 1995. systematically preference white Americans, while further relegating African-Americans to the margins of society. 5 Dale Maharidge, The Coming White Minority: California’s Eruptions and America’s Future (New York: Times Books, Conclusion: Legitimacy, Equality, and 1996). Affirmative Action 6 See David Broder, Democracy Derailed: The Initiative Cam- paign and the Power of Money (New York: Harcourt, 2000); n his 1971 A Theory of Justice, John Rawls contends that Dale Maharidge, The Coming White Minority; and Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future justice is that which reconciles notions of liberty and (New York: New Press, 1998). Iequality in a concerted effort to develop a society that oper- 7 See Terry H. Anderson, The Pursuit of Fairness: A History ates on fair principles. In bringing into harmony these two of Affirmative Action (New York: Oxford University Press, noble ideals, Rawls posits that a moral nation embraces 2004); Terry Eastland, Ending Affirmative Action: The Case notions of justice mutually acceptable to all rational persons. for Colorblind Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1997); John D. In the pursuit of “justice as fairness,” society is obligated to Skrentny, The Ironies of Affirmative Action (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). ensure that equality of opportunity is available to and ac- cessible by all members of the society.40 As Charles Mills in 8 Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White (New York: W.W. Norton, 2006), xiii. his 1997 The Racial Contract asserts, the state in which our 9 The median voter theorem states that in a majority election, country finds itself is one of willful oblivion to the unequal if all voters vote for the politician who commits to a policy allocation of the basic rights and liberties that Rawls and position closest to their own preference, and if there are only other social contract theorists seek to protect.41 If, Mills two politicians, then a politician maximizes his or her number contends, we are to consider liberty and equality to be the of votes by committing to the policy position preferred by the standards by which our country abides, we ought to have a median voter. system in place for mitigating the violations of these tenets. 10 See Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White. In the realm of American education, race-based stratifica- 11 Quoted in David Onkst, “First a Negro, Incidentally a Vet- tions exist and persist due to the deficiencies in the applica- eran.” Journal of Social History 31, no. 3 (1998): 517-43. tion of our current social contract. 12 See Monica Smith’s “Jim Crow’s Middle Class: An Examina- tion of the Socioeconomic Impacts of Devolution on Color- Blinded by a pseudo-meritocracy, where one’s rank in blind Legislation” (April 2011), in The Inquiry, a journal of society is determined by effort and merit, we may view the research projects by Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows at inequality extant within American education as the natural Washington University in St. Louis. 72 Daily 13 Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in 37 See Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro, Black Wealth, the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010): 22. White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality (New 14 Donald E. Heller, ed., The States and Public Higher Education York: Routledge, 2006). Policy: Affordability, Access, and Accountability (Baltimore, MD: 38 Cindy Kam and Yunju Nam, “Reaching Out or Pulling Back: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 31. Macroeconomic Conditions and Public Support for Social 15 Brian Pusser, “The Contemporary Politics of Access Policy: Welfare Spending,” Political Behavior 30, no. 2 (2008): 234. California After Proposition 209,” in The States and Public 39 See Katzneslon, When Affirmative Action Was White. Higher Education Policy: Affordability, Access, and Accountabil- 40 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap ity, ed. Donald E. Heller (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), 11. University Press, 2001), 121-143. 41 Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell Uni- 16 Ibid., 137. versity Press, 1997). 17 Ibid., 127. 42 Ibid., 123. 18 Ibid. 43 Rawls, Theory of Justice, 23. 19 Ibid., 139. 20 Alisa Hicklin, “The Effect of Race-Based Admissions in Bibliography Public Universities: Debunking the Myths about Hopwood and Proposition 209,” Public Administration Review 67, no. 2 (2007): 331-40. Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press. 2010. 21 Ibid., 337. AllPolitics - A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. CNN Time, 22 Zoltan L. Hajnal, Elisabeth R. Gerber, and Hugh Louch, 1997. Web. 01 May 2010. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLI- “Minorities and Direct Legislation: Evidence from Califor- TICS/1996/polls/cnn.usa.gallup/050996.shtml. nia Ballot Proposition Elections,” Journal of Politics 64, no. 1 (February 2002): 154-177. Anderson, Terry H. The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 23 See Barbara Gamble, “Putting Civil Rights to a Popular Vote,” American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 1 (1997): Austen-Smith, David, and Michael Wallerstein. “Redistribution 245-269. and Affirmative Action.” Journal of Public Economics 90, no. 10 (2006): 1789-1823. 24 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. State and Metropolitan Area Data Book. 5th ed. Washington, D.C., Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. “Tha Crossroads.” E. 1999 Eternal. CD. 1998. Ruthless Records, 1995. 25 AllPolitics- A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. CNN Time, Broder, David. Democracy Derailed: The Initiative Campaign and the 1997. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/polls/cnn. Power of Money. New York: Harcourt, 2000. usa.gallup/050996.shtml. Callan, Patrick M. “Reframing Access and Opportunity: Prob- 26 Patrick M. Callan, “Reframing Access and Opportunity: lematic State and Federal Higher Education Policy in the Problematic State and Federal Higher Education Policy in 1990s. In The States and Public Higher Education Policy: Afford- the 1990s,” in The States and Public Higher Education Policy: ability, Access, and Accountability, edited by Donald E. Heller, Affordability, Access, and Accountability, ed. Donald E. Heller 83-99. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2001). Cose, Ellis. “Do We Still Need Affirmative Action.” Newsweek 27 27 George E. Curry and Cornel West, The Affirmative Action January 2005. Debate (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996). Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. “Framing Affirmative Action.” Michigan 28 Kenneth Meier, “Race, Structure, and State Governments: Law Review 105 (2007): 123-133. The Politics of Higher Education Diversity,” The Journal of Curry, George E., and Cornel West. The Affirmative Action Debate. Politics 70 (2008): 851-860. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996. 29 Callan, “Reframing Access,” 93. Eastland, Terry. Ending Affirmative Action: The Case for Colorblind 30 Ibid. Justice. New York: Basic Books, 1997. 31 Martin Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media and Focus on Affirmative Action. African American Policy Forum, the Politics of Antipoverty Policy (Chicago: University of Chi- 1996. Web. 03 May 2010. http://aapf.org/focus/episodes/ cago Press, 1999), 68. oct30.php. 32 Ellis Cose, “Do We Still Need Affirmative Action.” News- Gamble, Barbara. “Putting Civil Rights to a Popular Vote,” week 27 January 2005. American Journal of Political Science 41, no. 1 (1997): 245-269. 33 John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policy Gerber, Elizabeth. “Legislative Response to the Threat of Popular (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), 14. Initiatives.” American Journal of Political Science 40, no. 1 (1996): 99-128. 34 Alexander, The New Jim Crow, 21. Gilens, Martin. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media and the 35 Pusser, “Contemporary Politics,” 137. Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. 36 David Austen-Smith and Michael Wallerstein, “Redistribu- tion and Affirmative Action,” Journal of Public Economics 90, Hajnal, Zoltan L., Elisabeth R. Gerber, and Hugh Louch. no. 10 (2006): 1798. Daily 73 “Minorities and Direct Legislation: Evidence from Califor- nia Ballot Proposition Elections.” Journal of Politics 64, no. 1 (February 2002): 154-177.

Heller, Donald E., ed. The States and Public Higher Education Policy: Affordability, Access, and Accountability. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Hicklin, Alisa. “The Effect of Race-Based Admissions in Public Universities: Debunking the Myths about Hopwood and Proposition 209.” Public Administration Review 67, no. 2 (2007): 331-340. Kam, Cindy, and Yunju Nam. “Reaching Out or Pulling Back: Macroeconomic Conditions and Public Support for Social Wel- fare Spending.” Political Behavior 30, no. 2 (2008): 223-258. Katznelson, Ira. When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Kingdon, John. Agenda, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984. Maharidge, Dale. The Coming White Minority: California’s Erup- tions and America’s Future. New York: Times Books, 1996. Meier, Kenneth. “Race, Structure, and State Governments: The Politics of Higher Education Diversity.” The Journal of Politics 70 (2008): 850-861. Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Oliver, Melvin L., and Thomas M. Shapiro. Black Wealth, White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. New York: Routledge, 2006. Onkst, David. “First a Negro, Incidentally a Veteran.” Journal of Social History 31, no. 3 (1998): 517-43. Proposition 209: Text of Proposed Law. California Secretary of State, 1996. Web. http://vote96.sos.ca.gov/bp/209text.htm. Pusser, Brian. “ The Contemporary Politics of Access Policy: Cali- fornia After Proposition 209.” In The States and Public Higher Education Policy: Affordability, Access, and Accountability, edited by Donald E. Heller, 121-143. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971. Schrag, Peter. Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future. New York: New Press, 1998. Skrentny, John D. The Ironies of Affirmative Action. Chicago: Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1996. United States. US Department of Commerce. Economics and Sta- tistics Administration, Bureau of the Census. State and Metro- politan Area Data Book. 5th ed. Washington, D.C., 1998.

74 Daily “Nigga What, Nigga Who”: “Nigga” as a Tool of Characterization and Social Critique in The Boondocks

Naia H. Ferguson

Abstract: Most of the research about the word “nigga” has been on the history of the word or the political correctness of saying the word based on race. This is no surprise since “nigga” only shows up in the media as a source of controversy. Still, there is much more that the word “nigga” offers. In Aaron McGruder’s animated series, The Boondocks, four characters use the word as a tool of characterization as well as social critique. In an attempt to understand this way of using “nigga,” I first recount the history of “nigga” as well as the controversy surrounding The Boondocks in its use of the word. I analyze Huey Freeman, Riley Freeman, Granddad, and Uncle Ruckus both for their individual ways of utilizing the word and for the overall message that The Boondocks presents about “nigga.” These findings, while specific to the show, will hopefully lead to more research about “nigga” outside of political correctness and history.

Introduction within the show, the word “nigga” is used to convey elements of various characters’ stereotyped personalities4 and beliefs nigger is a nigga is a nigger. My grandmother used to in ways that fall both within and outside of the currently tell me that when I was little, trying to convey that accepted definitions of “nigga.” The current qualitative study certainA Black people all shared the same negative traits. At consists of an analysis of the use of “nigga” in The Boondocks, the same time, she confounded the meanings of “nigger” by four characters in four episodes. The purpose is to explore and “nigga,” inferring that she believed that they, too, were how the word “nigga” functions as a tool of both character- exactly the same, which seems to hold true for an entire ization and critique as well as how the currently understood population of people who run the professional gamut from meanings of the word “nigga” cover the situations in which it scholars to politicians to civil rights advocates to laypeople. is being used to develop a character. The word “nigga,” etymologically derived from “nigger,” is a racial epithet for Black people. However, it has multiple History of “Nigga” and Controversy meanings, some positive, some negative, and some neutral, ne newspaper editor at the University of North Caro- and it continues to be a term used quite extensively within lina declared that “no matter what’s done with the last the Black community. In Aaron McGruder’s animated Osyllable of the word [nigger/nigga], it doesn’t make it any series The Boondocks, “nigga” is used to help create the less offensive or demeaning,”5 and many would agree, even identities and personalities of the different characters in the to the extent that the New York City Council discussed cartoon series. However, this is not a careless implementa- symbolically banning what they only cautiously referred to tion but a purposeful tool in order to create humor, char- as “the n-word”6. When the original history of “nigga” is acterization, and social/political critique, especially about taken into consideration, it’s easy to see why people would how the word is used in society. think in such a manner. While not native to the English In Geneva Smitherman’s 1994 dictionary of Black slang, language, “Negro” has been utilized in English as a term Black Talk, under the heading “nigga” (listed separately, it for Black Africans since 1555, and spellings like “negar,” bears mentioning, from the word “nigger”), seven definitions “niger,” “neger,” and “negur” can be traced back as far as are listed including “close friend, my backup,” “culturally 1584; however, the exact spelling “nigger” seems to have Black and rooted in Blackness and the African American 7 first appeared around 1775 . While not all uses of the word Experience,” and “the loud, vulgar stereotype of a nigga”; in its infancy can be determined to have arisen from hate, and “a term for any cool, down person who is deeply rooted they have few, if any positive connotations. For example, in hip hop culture.”1 A bulk of the other major scholarship the first time the word “nigger” as a racial slur appeared in about the word “nigga” deals with issues such as definition, a Supreme Court decision was in 1871 in the case of Blyew history, 2 and who is allowed to say the word and in what v. United States, where two white men were prosecuted contexts.3 In the case of Aaron McGruder’s animated series for brutally killing members of a Black family for racial The Boondocks, these questions do not cover a vital point— reasons. Witness accounts say that “one of the codefendants Ferguson 75 had declared that ‘there would soon be another war about show Wheel of Fortune where the puzzle hint was “people the niggers’ and that when it came, he ‘intended to go to who annoy you” and he solved “N_GGERS” as “niggers” killing niggers.’”8 The obvious intent behind their violent rather than the correct answer, “naggers.” The episode crime is highlighted by the use of the slur “nigger.” sparked very little controversy. This might have to do with With a past of varied, negative uses, it is easy to see the fact that it is always treated as a racial slur, a word that why the word “nigga” would be considered to have no real has obvious sting and should not be treated lightly, despite difference from “nigger,” especially as they have the same the continued use of the word. Towards the end of the etymological roots. Some people mistakenly consider it to episode, there seems to be a sort of reconciliation when a be a “lazier” pronunciation, a failure to properly articulate young, white character named Stan tells Token, the only the “–er” at the end of the word. This difference is actu- Black child in the neighborhood, “I’ve been trying to say ally called “postvocalic-r deletion,” a common feature of that I understand how you feel, but I’ll never understand. I’ll African-American Vernacular English in which the final never really get how it feels for a black person to have some- 18 –r sound is replaced with –a.9 This feature lends itself to the body use the N-word.” The issue is resolved cleanly and definite split between “nigger” and “nigga,” both in sociolin- the word gets no further recognition than as a racial slur. guistics and in practice within the Black community, with The Boondocks, on the other hand, wields “nigga” to discuss a the former (“nigger”) described as a “racial epithet, used deeper message about its use in American society. It is also by whites to insult or offend a person of African descent”10 used as a characterization tool, allowing the way the various and the latter (“nigga”) as “used with a variety of meanings, characters use the word to become a statement about who ranging from positive… to negative.”11 The split can espe- they are and what they believe in. This is in no way acci- cially be highlighted in the benign and even positive ways dental and is a subtle method of further revealing who each that “nigga” is used in the Black community to mean “your character truly is to the audience. best friend, your homey [sic]” in phrases such as “down- The Boondocks ass nigga on my team.”12 This definite split, however, does not resolve many of the complicated questions that revolve efore the show ever hit cable television, The Boondocks around the word “nigga.” If the “various neutral and positive existed only as a comic strip. Aaron McGruder, who uses appear to still be off-limits to whites”13 as Smitherman wasB a student of the University of Maryland, College Park, claims, then one is left to wonder if the opposite is true. If at the time, drew the cartoon for the university’s newspaper, there is, indeed, a racial component that bears on what the The Diamondback, in 1996 and was paid $30 per strip, which meaning of “nigga” is, where Black speakers always employ was more than twice the pay that his fellow cartoonists a wide range of uses except as an epithet and white speakers received. A year later, after it ended its college run, the hip- only employ it as a racial epithet, then complications arise hop magazine The Source caught wind of the humble strip when “nigga” is implemented to do more than just refer to and printed it on a monthly basis, significantly broadening the target, but also to define the speaker. the audience from a primarily university/academic audience When the complexities of the word “nigga” are brought to a mainstream African-American population. The Boon- to light, it is very easy to see why controversy would follow. docks’ popularity only continued to climb from there, and on th For example, in 2006, Nicholas “Fat Nick” Minucci, a white April 19 , 1999, it made its debut as a nationally syndicated individual, made New York City headlines when he argued strip after being picked up by Universal Press Syndicate. At in court that his use of the word “nigga” when beating the height of its popularity, The Boondocks was syndicated th Glenn Moore, an African-American man, with a baseball by 300 clients, and it ran until March 26 , 2006, originally bat was benign, a result of growing up in a mixed neighbor- intended as a hiatus. The strip never returned to newspapers hood where “the word no longer carries the racially charged and magazines, though some reruns were printed for a short overtones it has historically.”14 Jurors had to then discuss the while and previous strips are available online. Originally in- weight of the word in modern society, considering speaker tended for the FOX network, The Boondocks graduated from and target as well as current general social beliefs and at- a comic strip to an animated series as a television program titudes.15 Other controversies about the use of “nigga” came and found its home on the Adult Swim network on the Car- in the form of a more unsuspecting medium—animation. toon Network channel after tailoring it for FOX became too difficult. It premiered on November 6th, 2005, and currently The Boondocks is not the only animated series to use th consists of three seasons. “nigga” uncensored. Originally aired on March 7 , 2007, an episode of South Park, entitled “With Apologies to Jesse The Boondocks has been a lightning rod of controversy for Jackson,” used the word “nigger”16 a total of forty-three a myriad of reasons: the way certain celebrities and politi- times, uncensored.17 The episode centered around a mistake cal figures are portrayed, both directly and in allegory, that one of the characters made as a contestant on the TV game can be construed as negative; the sensitive topics that are 76 Ferguson explored; and, most publicly, the uncensored use of the owns the bank that holds the mortgage on the Freeman word “nigga.” Much outrage19 has been focused on not only home, comes by to visit Granddad, he invites the family to the audacity of the show to use “nigga” without censorship, his garden party. Granddad graciously accepts and immedi- but also who or which character is using the word. This is ately begins trying to prepare Huey and Riley for the party, most notable in an episode where Martin Luther King, Jr., telling them bits of advice such as, “the word for today is scolds a crowd of African-Americans, referring to them as ‘behave’: H-E-A-V-E, ‘behave.’”24 It is implied throughout “a bunch of trifling’, shiftless, good-for-nothing niggas.”20 the episode that Granddad wants to fit in with his white What many critics fail to realize is that The Boondocks neighbors in this new neighborhood. Much to his chagrin, wields “nigga” in such a way as to discuss a deeper message this becomes a seemingly hard task since Riley befriends about its use in American society. Moreover, as a charac- Ed Wuncler’s trigger-happy Iraq-war-veteran grandson, terization tool, it allows the audience to have insight into Ed Wuncler III, and later shoots him out of a third-story a character’s beliefs by how he or she uses the word, and it window, and Huey continues to speak about how Jesus was creates a subtle way of further revealing who each character Black and how governmental conspiracies were behind the truly is to the audience. In The Boondocks, the word “nigga” September 11th attacks. Further complications come when is used in a way that falls both in and out of the scope of Uncle Ruckus, the Black security worker, actively works to Smitherman’s seven definitions.21 show how the Freemans are not special, just regular “nig- In the current qualitative analysis, I will discuss how four gas,” despite the perceived elevated opinion that the whites characters in The Boondocks—Huey Freeman, Riley Free- have of them. Despite these problems, the party goes man, Robert “Granddad” Freeman, and Uncle Ruckus— smoothly and Granddad emerges with an intact relation- use the word “nigga” and how it ties into their personalities ship with Ed Wuncler. and also presents the wider message that Aaron McGruder “The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show” centers on the new is portraying about modern American society by imple- reality show that BET [Black Entertainment Television] menting the word “nigga” in his show.22 gives to Uncle Ruckus, showing his daily activities and revealing his beliefs and thoughts. While this show is a sort Methodology 25 of follow-up to the episode “The Hunger Strike,” in which or this project, I use the definitions of “nigga” provided Huey refuses to eat until BET’s offices are shut down, it by Geneva Smitherman in her 1994 dictionary-style goes further into both the “evil” of BET in their quest to Fbook, Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the destroy Black people (an over-exaggerated statement about Amen Corner, to discuss additional meanings and perhaps the slump in quality programming that airs on the net- nuances that are indicated in The Boondocks. To analyze the work) and the life of Uncle Ruckus. While chronicling his characters of Huey Freeman, Riley Freeman, Granddad, various jobs and recording his outspoken beliefs on race 26 and Uncle Ruckus,23 I focus on one episode from season relations and racial-social problems, it is revealed through one of The Boondocks (“The Garden Party”) and two epi- a DNA test that Ruckus is “one hundred and two percent 27 sodes from season two (“The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show” African, with a two percent margin of error.” The news is and “The Story of Gangstalicious 2”), along with an episode so devastating that Ruckus works endlessly to fulfill all the from season two that I believe gives significant insight into racist assumptions he has about Black people: quitting all of all four characters and their use of the word “nigga” (“The his jobs, drinking malt liquor, and reading Jet magazine to S Word”). Other episodes will come into play as need be as see the Jet Beauty of the Week. After living a life he hates, far as details about the characters are concerned, but will he prepares to commit suicide by hanging himself on the not be the main point of focus. The four episodes used in show. While the cameramen and producers make no moves the current analysis were transcribed, not in their entirety, to stop him, one of the heads of BET comes in just in time but in relation to the use of the word “nigga.” I also analyze to stop him, bringing with him a new, fake genealogy re- the episodes for the employed contextual meaning of port stating that Ruckus is mostly White. Ruckus abandons “nigga” in a scene and how that meaning and scene played the ideas of suicide and returns to life as normal. into who the character in question is meant to be to the “The Story of Gangstalicious 2” follows the rapper audience. Gangstalicious, with occasional commentary from a show The Boondocks: Episode Descriptions segment entitled “I Love Gay Rappers” by two outwardly homosexual rappers named McBooty B and Homo D, n “The Garden Party,” the pilot episode of the series, we who came out in the 1980s, providing their thoughts about are introduced to Robert “Granddad” Freeman and his whether the world is ready to accept a hip-hop artist who Itwo grandsons, Huey and Riley Freeman, who have just is gay and proud of it. Gangstalicious has come out with a moved to Woodcrest. When Ed Wuncler, the man who line of clothing that seems more geared towards females: Ferguson 77 tank tops, crop tops, and “skort”28 sets, a box of which he out to get you.”30 His self-education, radical thoughts, and sends to Riley for keeping quiet about his sexuality. Due to leftist organizations, all style him after the Black Panther the sudden change in attire, Granddad begins to worry that co-founder Huey P. Newton.31 Although cynical and harsh Riley is actually gay and spies on him, trying to find out in his criticism of government and society, Huey often has the truth. Huey doesn’t much care, but stays silent about the best insight and clearest thought process on various the truth because Granddad has said that if Riley is gay, he situations, which, in many cases, simply means that he is will have to move him to the garage, leaving Huey with his using common sense. This is portrayed in an episode where own room. The episode ends with no definite answer about two men spend unnecessary time violently interrogat- Riley’s sexuality. ing people in the neighborhood in pursuit of information “The S-Word” centers on the controversy and media blitz about a murderer that they never get. Frustrated, Huey tells following an incident in which Riley’s teacher, Mr. Petto, them, “I know who did the killing. I’ve known for twenty calls him “nigga.” The actual exchange is never seen, but minutes. Guy’s name is Terrell Jackson, he’s been braggin’ Riley and Granddad contend that Mr. Petto used “nigger” about it all day. Everybody knows. He lives five minutes 32 while Mr. Petto maintains his innocence, claiming (for away. I’ve got MapQuest directions right here.” various and inconsistent reasons he gives over the course Created as a Black Nationalist, Socialist, and overall of the episode) that he was using the word “nigga” and leftist, Huey rarely uses the word “nigga” throughout the not “nigger.” In an attempt to gain notoriety and possibly course of the show. When he does, it is often in such a money, Granddad and Riley decide to milk the situation for casual way that it could be taken as a throwaway line, such all that they can, taking advantage of the media attention. as when an adult character calls him from holding en route Huey doesn’t approve and tries to show his grandfather to prison and asks for help, to which Huey replies incredu- and brother that they’re being hypocrites due to their daily lously, “Nigga, I’m ten!”33 He uses the word quickly and use of “nigga,” but they laugh off his comments and ignore without much thought, lending to it the idea that it is a him. A man who is shown to be a reverend, activist, and careless implementation, though his usage. The fact that TV personality, Rev. Rollo Goodlove, becomes the one to his character rarely uses the word, as well as the situation start representing the Freeman family on television, though in which he is using it, proves that it is meaningful. This it is revealed that he represents them, not out of the good usage falls in line with Smitherman’s definition of “nigga” of his own heart, but to advertise his current career en- as a generic term for African-Americans; however, it also deavors. However, the appeals for monetary compensation shows how Huey uses it to unashamedly critique the people fall through, and the media attention fades away, much to around him. His other utilization of “nigga” continues to Granddad and Riley’s chagrin. shape him as a social critic. Huey often uses “nigga” to question others on their own contradictory usage, especially in reference to this grandfather: Granddad: Which one of y’all drank the last glass Characters in The Boondocks and Their Use of of orange juice? That’s the last full day’s supply of “Nigga” vitamin C! What am I supposed to do about my vitamin C now? Y’all need to start appreciating Huey your granddaddy! I went and spent your inheri- uey, the older of the two Freeman brothers, is a tance on this beautiful house in this neighborhood ten-year-old who is presented as being self-educated. and all I ask you to do is act like you got some ThisH is evident in the fact that the issues that he cares about class… [continues talking in the background] are not those that are taught in the elementary school he Riley: [half-whispering to Huey] Aye… what’s attends or publicized in the news, but rather those such as class? individuals on death row who are wrongfully imprisoned. Huey: It means don’t act like niggas. He is also unashamedly pro-Black, seen in his founding of Granddad: See? That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout, multiple radical leftist organizations, including “Africans right there! We don’t use the N-word in this Fighting Racism and Oppression” [AFRO], the “Black house. Revolutionary Organization” [BRO], and the “Black Revo- lutionary Underground Heroes” [BRUH].29 Moreover, in Huey: Granddad, you said the word “nigga” forty- the cartoon he is considered dangerous by the U.S. govern- six times yesterday. I counted. 34 ment, enough so to warrant being followed and observed by Granddad: Nigga, hush! an FBI agent only known as “The White Shadow” who tells him, “just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean we aren’t 78 Ferguson Huey: You both say the word “nigga” all the time. close friends are Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy, two Granddad: [offended] I do not! white males in their early twenties who spend most of their Huey: Riley thought it was a name until he was time committing crimes for the sake of committing them three!35 and getting away with them. Riley’s primary concern is to appear as “real” as possible, which means, in part, not be- Huey’s use of “nigga” in these two situations shows his ap- ing seen as a homosexual and being affiliated with various parent disdain for those who claim that “nigga” is wrong illicit and often illegal activities. In “The S-Word,” during when used in public, but then turn around and use it in the a highly publicized scandal in which a teacher calls Riley same manner, helping to create him as both outspoken and “nigga,” Ann Coulter appears on a news program and refers threatening. to Riley as a “foul-mouthed gang member” and a “thug.” His social critique extends past his family and into the While the rest of his family expresses shock and outrage, African-American as well as the general American com- Riley responds with “did she just call me a thug? …yeah!”39 36 munity. In one episode, Huey sits in on the R. Kelly trials One of Riley’s common phrases is also “nigga, you gay,” and watches an exaggerated version of the verdict. Once which he uses freely anytime someone expresses something Kelly is found not guilty, he immediately jumps up on a he considers to be feminine, as in expressing too much table and begins performing, leading the courtroom to emotion, coming too close to him physically, or engaging in erupt in dancing and celebration. Clearly fed up with the any other behavior he deems questionable. actions of those around him, Huey gets up and addresses Riley: [entering the bedroom as Huey is exiting] the entire courtroom: Damn, Morpheus. What chu ‘bout to do? “What the hell is wrong with you people? Every Huey: [hugs Riley] I love you, man. [lets go and famous nigga that gets arrested is not Nelson Man- continues out] dela! Yes, the government conspires to put a lot of Riley: [watching him leave] Ewwwww! Nigga, innocent Black men in jail on fallacious charges, you gay. 40 but R. Kelly is not one of those men! We all know the nigga can sing, but what happened to stan- Huey: And you’re okay with his… lifestyle? [refer- dards? What happened to bare minimums? Are ring to Gangstalicious] you a fan of R. Kelly? You wanna help R. Kelly? Riley: Well, I mean, I know he ain’t no real gang- Get some counseling for R. Kelly! Introduce him sta, but that’s cool, ‘cause, see, he’s an entertainer to some older women! Hide his camcorder! But – he ain’t gotta be out in the streets like I do. He’s don’t pretend that the man is a hero! [walks off, telling our story for us. then comes back] And stop the damn dancing! Act Huey: So you’re okay with him being gay? 37 like you’ve got some goddamn sense, people!” Riley: [snickers] Gay?! Who, who said he was gay? His critique of the situation begins with admonishing the Nigga, is you crazy? [keeps laughing] Gangstali- crowd, reminding them that if a “famous nigga” is ar- cious gay… Huey, you crazy. rested, then he or she isn’t equivalent to a political activist Huey: Come on, Riley: the song, the dance. I or someone wrongly imprisoned for attempting to do the mean, “do the homie”? right thing. He acknowledges that the government has been Riley: [defensive] The homie dance ain’t gay! I do guilty of wrongfully prosecuting Black males, critiquing the the homie! American justice system for its failures in that respect, but Huey: [folds his arms] That’s not gay? You who simultaneously lets them know that this is not a situation thinks everything in the world is gay-- where that is true. He offers solutions, but mostly, his rant [Brief montage of Riley saying “nigga, you gay” in centers around charging the audience with not having any various situations] sense and holding Kelly in higher esteem than they should simply because of his celebrity status. Huey: --don’t find any of this gay at all? Riley: Okay, so, all that other stuff was gay, but Riley Gangstalicious ain’t gay! You can’t just go throw- Huey’s eight-year-old brother, Riley, is his near polar op- ing that “gay” thing around, Huey, that’s a serious posite. While Riley is also outspoken, his idols include rap- accusation!41 pers who glorify the “gangster rap” lifestyle of getting mon- In the first scene above, Huey is about to leave the house, ey (possibly through criminal means) and the objectification thinking he might be killed or imprisoned and will never of women, as seen in the close friendships he develops with see his brother again, explaining his moment of heartfelt another Boondocks character, the rapper Gangstalicious,38 admission. Rather than allowing himself to partake in this as well as the rap group Lethal Interjection. His only other Ferguson 79 moment of vulnerability, Riley expresses disdain and even using the word colloquially in his personal time, he also disgust at Huey’s emotionality. In the second scene, he acts as if he knows that “nigga” is unacceptable in the shows not only that he finds the idea of being gay to be a public sphere and often pretends that he eschews using personal insult, but also that he does not think it should it. Granddad often portrays himself as being active in the be treated lightly. Despite this, his brother points out his Civil Rights Movement, even though he had little direct repeated use, highlighting Riley’s proclivity to point to such contribution to the movement44 and, as such, carries a “unsavory” behaviors in others while protecting himself and certain disdain for the use of “nigga.” In fact, when the lo- his close friends from the same accusations. cal news interviews Granddad about his reaction to Riley’s The way Riley uses “nigga” not only falls within a teacher calling him “nigga,” he immediately launches into a “generic, neutral use” to refer to an individual, but also be- lamenting speech: comes his way of referring to “a rebellious, fearless, uncon- Granddad: Oh, I remember those proud days, ventional, in-yo-face Black man” and a “cool, down person marching with Dr. Martin Luther King [points to who is deeply rooted in hip hop culture.”42 The term “nigga” picture of MLK hanging in the hallway] We used here is used not only to say something about the target, the to hear that hateful word all the time. person being spoken to, but also about the speaker. On the Reporter (voiceover): Robert Jebediah Freeman, one hand, one could interpret that Riley is using “nigga” Riley’s grandfather, says the incident takes him back as a term of address to the person he’s speaking with, be it to the Civil Rights Movement. his brother, his friends, or a stranger, as “nigga” when he Granddad: Oh, what sad times these are, when says “nigga, you gay,” but he is actually using it to critique educators can go around willy-nilly calling our others’ portrayal of non-masculine behavior (i.e., show- kids the N-word! Me and my boy have suffered ing emotion, hugging, etc.) and uses the term to reflect his tremendous, unspecified mental and physical dam- opinion of their sexuality based on their behavior. Simul- age from this!45 taneously, he builds himself up by wielding “nigga” in a ca- sual but purposeful way. His connections with the gangster In his interview, Granddad takes care to refer to “nigga” as rap community as well his sometime illegal everyday activi- “the N-word” since his comments will be aired to the gen- ties and interactions help to back up his self-aggrandizing eral public, much in the same way that the school superin- use of “nigga.” He is trying to live fast, dangerous, flashy, tendent does in his own interview: and masculine, putting him above those whom he critiques Superintendent Richards: We have a very strict for their questionable behavior. policy against teachers using the [makes quote fingers] N-word or any other racially insensitive Granddad words. The district’s policy is that teachers should Riley and Huey’s primary caretaker is their grandfather, always say [quote fingers] N-word instead of the Robert Jebediah Freeman, usually referred to as simply actual N-word…46 “Granddad” by Riley and Huey. He is retired, which is the reason the Freeman family moved to the affluent White He also makes sure that he not only mentions that he suburb that they live in presently. He is single, but there has marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but also conducts been no explicit explanation of what happened to his wife. the interview in front of the portrait as to conjure up images The audience is led to believe that he is a widower, which is of the Civil Rights Movement and evoke its meaning to evidenced when Riley creates a mural of Granddad’s wed- those watching the news program on which his interview ding photo on the side of their house, an action that moves will be aired. However, this somber attitude disappears as Granddad to tears.43 Despite this, his primary concerns soon as the press leaves the premises and the Freeman fam- seem to be money, appearing well-off and fitting in with ily is alone once again and Granddad has to explain his new his upper-middle-class neighbors and finding a younger celebratory attitude to a skeptical Huey: woman to date. Due to his more material- and status-ori- Granddad: It’s like winnin’ the lotto! ented goals, his overall point of view seems to line up better Huey: How? with Riley’s than with Huey’s since he prefers to spend time Granddad: Look at your brother! [voice cracking] creating a more comfortable lifestyle for himself than being He’s traumatized. a voice of reason or clarity. His conflicts with Riley usually [Riley is dancing in a circle, wiggling his butt, involve Riley’s behavior, while his conflicts with Huey have chanting “booty dance, uh, booty dance, booty to do with Huey’s critique of his grandfather’s behavior dance, do the booty dance.”] and/or decisions. Huey: Granddad, Riley’s doing the celebratory Unlike his grandsons, Granddad seems to have a two- booty dance. tiered relationship with the word “nigga.” While he enjoys 80 Ferguson Granddad: He’s traumatized on the inside. report that he requested stated that he is “one hundred Huey: You both say the word “nigga” all the time. and two percent African, with a two percent margin of 50 Granddad: [displaying exaggerated offense] I do error.” Uncle Ruckus holds fast to the idea that he has not! revitiligo, a skin-darkening disease that is “the opposite of what Michael Jackson’s got” which he tries to control using Huey: Riley thought it was a name until he was “topical ointment made of bleach and sulfur.”51 He limits three! himself to various menial jobs, such as janitorial work, Granddad: Well, that’s different. [walking over to part-time security, and driving the local school bus to J. Huey] You see, it’s okay between us behind closed Edgar Elementary School and appears to have no other doors. We flipped the word into a term of endear- goals in life. He adores white people and white culture even ment. That’s what I call my homies. You feel me? 47 though most white people seem to have an inherent distaste [hugs Huey] My nigga! for him. Ruckus even goes as far as to build “small shrines While Granddad is quick to bring up his involvement in to certain special white people who are important” such as the African-American struggle for equal rights and to imply John Wayne, George Bush, Sr., and Barry Manilow.52 that it pains him to even say the word (as seen in his ten- Uncle Ruckus’s aspirations of whiteness, disdain for dency to say “N-word” rather than “nigga”) in public, he also Blacks and Black culture, fierce loyalty to white employers indicates and discusses his personal use of the word. and complete dedication to work that pleases whites, are Granddad is the only character who has different private all integral parts of who he is as a character. He is perfectly and public uses of “nigga.” Publicly and when he is trying content in his inferiority and his subordinate social posi- to portray himself as a moral authority figure, Granddad tion, meaning that he serves whites in his various jobs (bus condemns “nigga,” referring to it as “the N-word” and driver, doorman, etc.) with gladness and warmth, as seen labeling it as “hateful” and even traumatizing. Still, he uses when he continues to refer to the white children on his the word sporadically in his personal life without ever giv- school bus as “mister,” “miss,” and even the affectionate “my ing it the same negative air. This contrast works as a foil to little sunshine” as when they push past and insult him.53 Huey’s scrutiny, further illustrating the very real conflict of The only moment where he seems not to be content with hypocrisy in Black use of the word “nigga.” In fact, I would his status is in “The Garden Party” when he tells Grand- argue that this conflict is one of the most widely-discussed dad, who is Mr. Wuncler’s guest, that in all the years he issues concerning “nigga”—how can Black individuals tear has been working for Mr. Wuncler, he has never been down the word in public and for the press, but use it in invited to a party. His aspirations of whiteness are por- their home lives without any remorse? trayed through his dedication to the concept that he is not I think that this conflict of public vs. private opinion actually Black, but rather is suffering from a skin condition can be likened to the double-consciousness paradox that that he has been trying to slow down and hopes someday to W.E.B. Du Bois first brought to light in his renowned 1935 cure. However, there is still something to be said about his 54 publication, The Souls of Black Folk. Double-consciousness inherent racism, what some would call self-hate, which refers to the need of the African-American individual to is further reflected in the gap between his use of the word compromise himself or herself into “two-ness,—an Ameri- “nigga” and how other characters use the term. can, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled Ruckus’s use of the word “nigga” within the show could strivings”—they have their Black consciousness as well as be argued to be the “generic neutral” use that Smitherman “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes writes about, but more closely resembles the way that a of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world white person would use “nigger.” Since he views himself as that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”48 In other a white supremacist, as far as his belief in the superiority of words, there is an in-group view of the self and the world, whites and in the inherent ignorance and overall ineptitude a view that is uniquely and distinctly African-American49 of African-Americans, it could be possible for him to be as well as an outward and white majority view of the world using the word “nigger” with postvocalic-r deletion, which and the self. changes the “-er” sound to “-a,” but Smitherman’s defini- tion of “nigger” clearly states that it is “used by Whites to Uncle Ruckus insult or offend a person of African descent.”55 Even though The last and arguably most intriguing of all the charac- he aspires to be white and makes excuses for his dark skin, ters in The Boondocks is Uncle Ruckus. Outspoken, hefty, Uncle Ruckus’s self-subjugation (purposefully choosing and aesthetically unpleasing, Uncle Ruckus is an anomaly: menial jobs) and self-segregation (having only Black friends a Black man with a strong belief in white supremacy. While despite his desire to be white) proves that he fully under- he understands that he is phenotypically African-Ameri- stands that he is Black. Therefore, Ruckus must be using can, he refuses to believe that he is, even though a lab test Ferguson 81 the term “nigga.” The next assumption would be that the filthy, uncouth and even flat-out racist, but will continue way Ruckus uses “nigga” falls in line with “the loud, vulgar to use the word in their homes, with their friends, and in stereotype of a nigga.” This becomes problematic when other everyday speech. The hypocrisy that some display in considering the following use in Ruckus’s statement below: the dissonance between their portrayed belief and how they “Naw, I don’t thank (think) we should use the use the word “nigga” is real, though it may not go as far as woid (word) and I tell ya why—because niggas exaggerating the truth for media attention, as Riley and have gotten used to it, that’s why! Hell, they like Granddad did in “The S-Word.” The deeper message Huey it now. It’s like when you growin’ crops an’ you gives about the word “nigga” and real life is that there is still strip the soil of its nutrients and goodness and something to be said about consistency between preaching then you cain’t grown nothin’. You gotta rotate yo’ and practicing, between what one says about society’s use of racist slurs! Now, I know it’s hard, ‘cause ‘nigga’ the word and how an individual uses it, race notwithstand- just rolls off the tongue the way sweat rolls off a ing. Huey’s negatively tinged use of “nigga,” calling out per- nigga’s fo’head, but we cannot let that be a crutch! ceived ignorance, discusses the larger problem of what some ‘Specially when there are so many other fine sub- would call ignorance through inconsistency of portrayed stitutes: spade, porch monkey, jiggaboo! I say, next belief and practice of the use of “nigga.” time you gon’ call a darkie a nigga, call that coon a While the critique aspect remains when changing the jungle bunny instead.”56 focus to what Riley’s use of “nigga” says about real life, two In this example, Ruckus uses “nigga” as a general term, specific issues arise: gangsta rap culture and homophobia. discounting individual behavior completely by referring to Riley wants to be seen as tough, as someone who makes a African-Americans as a population, and often using other lot of money without having to work hard, as someone to racial epithets as stand-ins. In fact, in the episode “The S- be feared, respected, and revered, and his use of the word Word,” Uncle Ruckus unabashedly details his views about “nigga” as a tool of self-aggrandizement shows this. This is the word “nigga” and other racial slurs In this scene, “nigga” perhaps best explained through the chorus of “The N Word has no situational bearing, but instead reflects solely on the Song,” a song by Brooklyn rapper Sha Stimuli: race of the person in question, showing that Ruckus, as a “Nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga Black person, is using “nigga” as a racial epithet despite the / I try not to say it but I feel much bigger / nigga, word’s lack of the “-er ending. nigga, nigga, nigga, oh, but please pardon us / But ‘where my brothers at?’, it doesn’t sound hard “Nigga” in The Boondocks enough / So nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, Huey, Riley, Granddad, and Uncle Ruckus, as charac- nigga please / nigga, nigga, nigga, it comes out with ters within The Boondocks using the word “nigga,” all say ease / So I keep sayin’ it, guess I gotta figure / You 57 something larger about real life and society outside of the can look like my brother, but I call you my nigga.” parallel but fictional world within which they exist. The The chorus expresses how “nigga” makes the speaker “feel Boondocks is social, racial, and political satire, providing much bigger” since phrases like “my brother” do not pack commentary on many of the issues that the creator, Aaron the same punch, or “sound hard enough.” Riley embodies McGruder, sees in the world around him. It would be this point of view perfectly. As someone who spends a lot of completely unfair to assert that there is a perfect correla- his time with older males, especially rappers and men who tion between what the characters say and believe and how it are known to commit crimes, he wants to portray himself relates to real life—their words are scripted, their person- as someone who is of the same status. Since he cannot do alities are chosen carefully, and their comments are often all of the things that they do, such as attract many women, grossly exaggerated for the sake of comedy. However, since make thousands of dollars, or even own a gun, using the the animated series is, as aforementioned, satirical, there word “nigga” then becomes his way of projecting himself are larger ideas at play, especially in regards to the word into that lifestyle. At the same time, and sometimes in the “nigga” and the characterizations of these four characters same instance, Riley uses the word to insult those who do within the show. anything that he deems “gay.” This can include behavior that Huey, who represents one form of critique about the actually lends itself to homophobia, such as two men kissing Black community, uses “nigga” during his scathing critiques passionately, or emotional behavior, such as his brother sit- of society and individual behavior, referring to the igno- ting in the seat directly next to his in the movie theater. This rance of those around him. The situations he finds himself speaks to a larger fear of homophobia in gangsta rap music in when he uses these words are not unlike those that can and culture. “Faggot” and “gay” are commonly used in rap 58 be found in our own society. To be sure, there are people lyrics to demean others, questioning their sexuality and, who will denounce the word “nigga” in public for being therefore, their manhood and masculinity, two things that 82 Ferguson Riley personally cherishes. While the situations he gets into would easily discount. For a word with such a long, bloody, are not carbon copies of real-life situations, they still speak and at times muddled past, it would be detrimental not to to the larger pattern of homophobia and self-aggrandizing trace where it has come from in order to assess its value in gangsta rap music and culture. today. Still, I contend that the history, current usage, and Granddad’s use of “nigga” creates a portrait of the problem political correctness are not the sole factors that make of double-consciousness in the Black community, the battle up “nigga.” The fact that “nigga” is nuanced and complex to be both fully Black and fully American. In this struggle, means that the corpus of monochromatic scholarship thus Black people must try to reconcile their Black “private” selves far has been too narrow to encapsulate all that this word is with (or even hide these selves from) the public domain, capable of. Simply saying that the scope of the work about which has the power to accept or shun them as individuals. “nigga” hasn’t widened to its full potential is an easier It can be argued that a Black individual who struggles with claim, however, than trying to actually broaden this par- double-consciousness also struggles with two feuding points ticular area of research. of view regarding the word “nigga.” There is the internal This is where the factors of characterization and critique “Black” colloquial view, the same view that says, as Grand- come in. The Boondocks stands as a case study of the ways dad did, that “it’s okay between us […] we flipped the word in which “nigga” can be used and/or studied outside of into a term of endearment,” which wars with the “Ameri- history, current usage, and political correctness. In fact, The 59 can” point of view, which generally villainizes the word Boondocks manages mostly to discard the factors of political “nigga” in all forms. Granddad’s use of “nigga” specifically correctness and history in its use outside of a few references speaks to the dual attitudes that people have towards “nigga” (i.e., mentioning what it meant during the era of the Civil as far as public vs. private opinions. This duality of opinion Rights Movement, creating a conflict over the difference stems from the core concept of double-consciousness that between “nigga” when white people use it and when Black Granddad’s conflict represents. In fear of such condemnation, people use it) to focus on the other ways “nigga” can be the creation of an American “public” self is necessary, giving used/studied. This results in an untapped source of raw off the impression that the individual, much like society at data, a starting point not only to rethink “nigga,” but also to large, shuns “nigga” and all its uses. remold it, possibly tossing out old conceptions and formu- Uncle Ruckus, as an exaggerated character, seems to lating new ones. Since The Boondocks is one show, it cannot speak to nothing specifically in real life, save that his beliefs possibly tackle all of these, so it centers on two specific in white supremacy do exist in our society. While his exact factors that have yet to be explored in scholarship—charac- personality is not characteristic of an archetype that can terization and critique. be seen often in our society, the way Aaron McGruder While Huey, Riley, Granddad, and Uncle Ruckus use created his character still says something important about “nigga” in very different ways, they carry two distinct society. His steadfast beliefs in stereotypes about “niggas,” features—the use of “nigga” distinguishes who is speaking, such as how they are too ignorant to benefit from college and it acts as a vehicle of critique. The phrase “nigga, you courses, how they cannot hold a job, and how they never gay” has nearly become Riley’s catchphrase in the show, one did anything worth doing or never did anything that a of the ways he is known. Huey and Uncle Ruckus both use white person did not do better, are all symptomatic of real the word to refer to the greater Black community, especially beliefs about African-Americans as a population. They are when it comes to flaws, except that Uncle Ruckus leans far from true, pointing out some of the irrationalities of more towards reinforcing racial stereotypes and making racism, but represent many of the negative stereotypes that fun of Black people while Huey tries to a come from place are threaded throughout society. Uncle Ruckus’s charac- of righteous anger, understanding the greatness that the ter also speaks directly to current definitions of the word “nigga” by creating a situation in which “nigga” is used by Black community can achieve. Granddad’s usage is strictly a Black person in the same way it is expected that “nigger” divided between a general colloquial “nigga” and referenc- would be used by a white person. As someone who believes ing a racial slur, purposefully standing in staunch opposi- in white supremacy, it comes as no surprise that “nigga” tion to each other. Still, while all of these uses are unique would be used as “nigger,” but the color of Ruckus’s skin enough to identify each character, they all stand as direct complicates the situation since no meaning of “nigga” runs or indirect critiques. Huey focuses his critique on the Black parallel to the meaning of “nigger” and since “nigger” is a community at large, looking at it through the lens of some- “racial epithet, used by whites.”60 one who sees more potential while still bluntly pointing out major perceived flaws and inconsistencies. Uncle Ruckus Conclusion also focuses his critique on the Black community. Riley critiques the way he perceives the sexuality of those around he debate about the history, current usage, and politi- him while simultaneously representing a larger critique of cal correctness of the word “nigga” is not one that I T Ferguson 83 homophobia in gangsta rap culture, and Granddad rep- 14 Chung, Jen, “What's in a Word: Howard Beach Hate Crime Trial,” Gothamist, May 18, 2006. resents a critique of the issue of double-consciousness in 15 the Black community, both with the word “nigga” and in Nicholas Minucci was later sentenced to fifteen years in prison for a hate crime once it was decided that his use of the general. word “nigga” was racially charged. If Huey, Riley, Granddad, and Uncle Ruckus can use 16 The word “nigger” and not “nigga” is used here to illustrate “nigga” in ways that are all specific to their character, yet all that South Park treated the word entirely as a racial epithet, hold very similar purposes as far as critique is concerned, with no positive or neutral connotations, as well as to accu- then there is clearly more that can be explored about the rately reflect the article that discussed it. word. Because The Boondocks is a satire, its purpose is to find 17 Vanessa E. Jones, “No Offense, But…,” The Boston Globe, January 29, 2008. a comedic way to make social and political commentary, and “nigga” plays a big role in that endeavor. The correla- 18 Ibid. tion between the show and reality is not 1:1 since language 19 Charles E. Rogers, "What Image Does NAACP Project with in The Boondocks is scripted, but since it is modeled after Award for N-Word Cartoon?" New York Amsterdam News, March 9, 2006: 25. real-life situations, it continues to speak to everyday life. In 20 light of these revelations, I would like to see later scholar- “The Return of the King,” The Boondocks: The Complete First Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 15 ship about the word “nigga” move away from the standbys January, 2006, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. of history, current usage, and political correctness in order 21 Smitherman, Black Talk, 210-212. to dig more deeply and explore its other functions. I believe 22 In interviews, McGruder gives no explicit reason behind us- that my analysis can be the springboard for the expansion ing “nigga” in The Boondocks, so his opinions are left out of of the current definition, if not the creation of another defi- the current analysis since they are unavailable. nition of the word “nigga.” My ultimate hope is that “nigga” 23 I am only analyzing men because there are no stable female will be unbound from the two-dimensional view it has been characters to analyze. stuck in for the last few decades and be further studied as 24 “The Garden Party,” The Boondocks: The Complete First more than just another term to be censored. Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 6 Novem- ber 2005, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. 25 Both “The Hunger Strike” and “The Uncle Ruckus Reality 1 Geneva Smitherman, Black Talk: Words and Phrases from Show” were banned in the United States for the way that BET the Hood to the Amen Corner (New York: Houghton Mifflin, and its heads of staff were depicted. 1994), 210-211. 26 By this, I mean his beliefs about the way problems with vari- 2 See Randall Kennedy’s Nigger: The Strange Career of a ous racial groups play out in the social sphere. For example, Troublesome Word (New York: Vintage Books, 2002) and Ruckus rants about how a Black person going to college is parts of Jabari Asim’s The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who pointless because all Blacks do is party. Shouldn’t, and Why (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007). 27 “The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show,” The Boondocks: The 3 See Asim, The N Word. Complete Second Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 23 March 2008, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 4 This is purely from an audience member’s standpoint, with 2008. emphasis on sociolinguistic, historical, and social research on the word “nigga.” Communication studies and animations 28 A pair of shorts with a wrap-around skirt component. will not be focuses of this project. Also, the term “stereotype” 29 “The Real,” The Boondocks: The Complete First Season, here is not meant to be a negative term, simply one that refers DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes, 8 January 2006, to archetypes of various personalities in society. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. 5 Rob Nelson, “The Word ‘Nigga’ is Only for Slaves and Sam- 30 Ibid. bos,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (1998): 117. 31 Although not discussed at all during the course of the show, 6 Jen Chung, “City Council Closer to Banning the N Word,” this fact is revealed early on in the comic strip. Gothamist, February 2007. 32 “A Date With the Health Inspector,” The Boondocks: The 7 Asim, The N Word, 10-11. Complete First Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney 8 Kennedy, Nigger: The Strange Career, 33. Barnes, 4 December 2005, Sony Pictures Home Entertain- ment, 2006. 9 Geneva Smitherman, "The Chain Remain the Same": Com- municative Practices in the Hip Hop Nation,” Journal of 33 Ibid. Black Studies 28, no. 1 (September 1997): 10, 19. 34 “The Garden Party.” 10 Smitherman, Black Talk, 212-213. 35 “The S-Word,” The Boondocks: The Complete Second 11 Ibid., 210. Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 21 January 2008, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008. 12 Smitherman, "The Chain Remain the Same," 19. 36 Robert “R.” Kelly, an R&B star, was on trial in the mid- 13 Smitherman, Black Talk, 213. 2000’s, charged with having sex with a minor and child 84 Ferguson pornography. He was found not guilty on all counts. Associated Press. “NAACP Delegates ‘Bury’ N-Word in Cer- 37 “The Trial of R. Kelly,” The Boondocks: The Complete First emony.” MSNBC. July 9, 2001. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 13 Novem- id/19680493/ (accessed August 10, 2010). ber 2005, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. Azote, Abigail. “Rising Tide of Teens for Adult Swim.” Media 38 “The Story of Gangstalicious 2,” The Boondocks: The Life Magazine. April 22, 2005. http://www.medialifemaga- Complete Second Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney zine.com/news2005/april05/apr18/5_fri/news4friday.html Barnes, 4 February 2008, Sony Pictures Home Entertain- (accessed October 1, 2009). ment, 2008. Chung, Jen. “City Council Closer to Banning the N Word.” 39 “The S-Word.” Gothamist, February 2007. 40 “The Passion of Reverend Ruckus,” The Boondocks: The —---. “What’s in a Word: Howard Beach Hate Crime Trial.” Complete First Season, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Gothamist, May 18, 2006. Barnes, 19 March 2006, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Barnes & 2006. Noble Classics, 2003. 41 “The Story of Gangstalicious 2.” Jones, Vanessa E. “No Offense, But ...” The Boston Globe, January 42 Smitherman, Black Talk, 210-211. 29, 2008. 43 “Riley Wuz Here,” The Boondocks: The Complete First Sea- Kennedy, Randall. Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome son, DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes, 19 February Word. New York: Vintage Books, 2002. 1006, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. Nelson, Rob. “The Word ‘Nigga’ is Only for Slaves and Sambos.” 44 “The Garden Party.” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1998: 117. 45 “The S-Word,” emphasis added. Rogers, Charles E. “What Image Does NAACP Project with Award for N-Word Cartoon?” New York Amsterdam News, 46 “The S-Word.” March 9, 2006: 25. 47 Ibid. Smitherman, Geneva. “”The Chain Remain the Same”: Com- 48 W.D.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Barnes municative Practices in the Hip Hop Nation.” Journal of Black & Noble Classics, 2003). Studies 28, no. 1 (September 1997): 3-25. 49 I mean this in a loose sense—the African-American experi- —---. Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen ence varies in countless ways, but, in general, it is different Corner. New York: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1994. from the “American” experience. Stimuli, Sha. “The N Word Song.” Hip-Hop Docktrine 2 (The Saga 50 “The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show.” Continues). Comp. Sherod Khaalis. 2007. 51 Ibid. Episodes from The Boondocks, Listed Chronologically: 52 Ibid. “The Garden Party.” The Boondocks: The Complete First Season. 53 Ibid. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 6 November 2005. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. 54 By “self-hate,” I am not referring to Uncle Ruckus hating himself, but rather to Uncle Ruckus hating all Black people “A Date With the Health Inspector.” The Boondocks: The Complete while still being part of the Black race. First Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 4 December 2005. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. 55 Smitherman, Black Talk, 212. “The Story of Gangstalicious.” The Boondocks: The Complete First 56 “The S-Word.” Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, R. Barnes. 11 December 57 Sha Stimuli, “The N Word Song,” Hip-Hop Docktrine 2 (The 2005. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. Saga Continues), 2007. “The Real.” The Boondocks: The Complete First Season. DVD. Aaron 58 Two good, solid examples would be Nas’ song “Ether” when McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 8 January 2006. Sony Pictures he refers to then-nemesis Jay-Z as “Gay-Z” and his label, Home Entertainment, 2006. Rocafella Records, as “Cockafella Records” and in Juelz San- “The Return of the King.” The Boondocks: The Complete First tana’s song “Kill Yourself” in which he says, “I’m all back in Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 15 January the game / bringing more crack to the game / so all faggots 2006. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. and lames should kill yourself.” “Let’s Nab Oprah.” The Boondocks: The Complete First Season. 59 Here, “American” refers to the median citizen, so really it re- DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 12 February 2006. fers to a white middle-class point of view as far as the public Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. is concerned. “Riley Wuz Here.” The Boondocks: The Complete First Season. 60 Smitherman, Black Talk, 212-213. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 19 February 2006. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. “The Passion of Reverend Ruckus.” The Boondocks: The Complete Bibliography First Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 19 March 2006. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. Asim, Jabari. The N word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and “The Story of Thugnificent.” The Boondocks: The Complete Second Why. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 5 Novem- Ferguson 85 ber 2007. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008. “The S-Word.” The Boondocks: The Complete Second Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 21 January 2008. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008. “The Story of Gangstalicious 2.” The Boondocks: The Complete Second Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 4 February 2008. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008. “The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show.” The Boondocks: The Complete Second Season. DVD. Aaron McGruder, Rodney Barnes. 23 March 2008. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2008.

86 Ferguson Knowledge, Society, and the State: Civil Society Participation and Legitimization through Transparency Initiatives in Azerbaijan

Thomas Hernandez

Abstract: This study investigates how “political development” initiatives in the Republic of Azerbaijan restructure representations of the actors involved. In particular, it examines how a body politic lacking agency is transformed by providing civil society leaders a space for political participation. Through interviews with Azerbaijani civil society leaders, textual analysis, and field observations, I specifically consider the discourse of “transparency,” or the notion that societies should have free access to state revenue and budgetary information as a means of mitigating corruption. The first section of this article provides a brief political history of modern Azerbaijan and describes the political and social impacts of oil and natural gas export on formal state institutions, along with an associated increase in state corruption. In the second section I explain the theoretical framework of transparency and the formation of a small endogenous civil society organization (CSO) network that employed a broad range of “political development” initiatives meant to mitigate corruption. In the third section I draw upon the interviews of civil society leaders to explain a common Soviet-legacy narrative employed by interviewees. Leaders attribute problems to the social consciousness of both state actors and the body politic, thereby reifying the position of civil society leaders as actors incapable of producing political change. Similar to Ferguson’s work on governmentality’s “unintended consequences,” transparency discourse recreates the common Azerbaijani as lacking political agency, thereby providing civil society leaders a legitimized space for political participation and contestation of the state.

Introduction Azerbaijan,” an organization funded by exogenous public and private institutions that advocate for greater govern- “Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into prac- mental transparency. I traveled to Azerbaijan interested tice.” –Anton Chekov th in “political development” initiatives, measures under the n the 10 floor of a high-rise office building in down- heading of “good governance” that are meant to bring town Baku sits a middle aged-man wearing modest the developing world out of poverty by fixing broken or butO cleanly Western business attire. This man’s name is Mr. underdeveloped political institutions. “Good governance” Sizad,1 and he is the director of a public finance monitoring 2 is widely endorsed by international political development civil society organization (CSO), an Azerbaijani institute experts as an important method in improving society’s charged with weighty responsibilities. The building, Mr. check on governing institutions by bolstering democratic Sizad informs me, is not the one that had all of the “big mechanisms. One key aspect of political development is name” development organizations, but it is a good one the promotion of increased state “transparency,” the idea nonetheless. In it are dozens of other CSO and interna- that society should have access to information about state tional business offices. Our conversation is not long and is activities as a means of holding state leaders accountable. interrupted by brief but seemingly important phone calls to Political development experts claim that the more knowl- Mr. Sizad, one in Russian, another in Azerbaijani, and yet edge a society has about their government, the greater their another in English. While on the phone the director sits capability to enact change via formal or informal political leaning back in his chair, often gazing out a tall window mechanisms. This capability is created through participa- at a Baku skyline congested with construction and other tion in activities that include, but are not limited to, par- “development” projects. As I sit waiting for him to return ticipation in democratic elections, canvassing for political to my questions, my eyes are drawn to a small framed quote candidates, and protesting against incumbents. hanging on an otherwise barren wall: “Knowledge is of no Mr. Sizad’s comments were fascinating because they value unless you put it into practice.” Who, I ask the direc- suggested a shift in the locus of control away from societal tor, puts this knowledge into practice? “We do” the director forms of political representation predicated on a faith in says, “Our office and others like it!” majority rule via democratic elections, to the participation I met with Mr. Sizad in the summer of 2010 because he of a small, mostly homogenous group of Azerbaijanis citi- was the director of the organization whose mission is to zens who claim to represent the body politic. His remarks “monitor and track the budget expenses of the republic of also raise the questions of how to analyze political reform Hernandez 87 of this sort. In the first 20 years after the collapse of the promoted democracy. The United States and many Euro- Soviet system, economic and political scientists dominated pean countries view Azerbaijan as an important ally due the political development discussion, typically focusing to its strategic location and its role as a transport corridor on formal changes within the systems of government and between East and West. With Russia to its north, Iran to social and economic reforms, with the objective of evaluat- its south and ethnically related Turkey to its west, regional ing the speed and viability of democratization in different powers often pander to Azerbaijan because of its geopoliti- post-soviet states.3 These scholars were concerned with the cal importance. For many reasons Azerbaijan serves an efficacy of political development laws and initiatives, and important role to the world community as a provider of whether they would effectively mitigate the effects of the energy resources and an important ally to the West in a “resource curse.”4 But few have used ethnographic analy- volatile region. sis of everyday life to examine how transparency theory For modern day Azerbaijanis, foreign intervention and as a discourse is operative within civil society organiza- interest in the region in the past were usually perceived tions. Unlike previous research that has asked “is political to be instigated by economic motives, which meant state development working in Post-Soviet spaces?” I instead ask, as James Ferguson does, “what are the unintended conse- quences of political development initiatives?” Working from this different perspective, I contend that in Azerbaijan (a) civil society leaders legitimate their ac- tions by constructing the general Azerbaijani population as lacking political agency because of a shared Soviet legacy, and (b) these leaders make the mistake of assuming that access to state budgetary information creates a form of po- litical participation. To explore these claims I consider the small faction of Azerbaijani citizens like Mr. Sizad, who are involved in transparency advocacy through endogenous civil society organizations. These organizations have the ex- plicit purpose of increasing resource contract, revenue, and budgetary transparency of the state. The groups I analyze are all organizations that are staffed primarily by Azerbai- jani citizens but receive a majority of their funding from international public and private development institutions. Map of Middle East highlighting Azerbaijan, courtesy of CIA A Century of Politics and Oil World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/ the-world-factbook/geos/aj.html) r. Sizad and many of the Azerbaijanis I interviewed reflected the complex socio-historical past of the state,M just as the multiple languages they speak or the overlapping histories they draw from do. This history is the context for civil society leaders’ perception of the modern day Azerbaijani as lacking political agency, and it helps explain the events informing civil society leaders’ collective imagination. One part of this explanation is the feeling of being at the intersection of various forces of history. The republic of Azerbaijan, formed only in 1991 out of the rem- nants of the Soviet Union, has often been conceptualized by its citizens as a country situated at a spatial and temporal crossroads. Economically, Azerbaijan is currently at the cusp of a shift from command economy stagnation to mar- ket economy growth, prompted by an estimated $10 billion in investment over the next five years, much of which will come from the oil and natural gas industries.5 Socially and Map of Azerbaijan, courtesy of CIA World Factbook politically, area experts often describe the country as being (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- caught between Soviet-style authoritarianism and Western- factbook/geos/aj.html) 88 Hernandez economic decisions were made with deals between business ket economy, which may have also encouraged bribery.9 tycoons and state leaders. The modern history of Azerbai- Political bribery was also common in Soviet Azerbaijan, as jan seems to possess similar themes of foreign intervention Communist Party posts were bought and sold within a web prompted by a thirst for oil. For instance, the country’s of local obligations.10 brief period of democratic freedom in the early twentieth The political uncertainty created after the Soviet Union’s century was truncated in part because of Soviet demand for disintegration helps us understand why the current political oil. After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World climate discourages dissenting voices. Political instability War I, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia formed the started in the late 1980s, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gor- Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. When the bachev’s policy of glasnost (openness) encouraged opposi- republic dissolved in 1918, Azerbaijan declared its inde- tion to the ruling Azerbaijani Communist Party, the main pendence as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, making source of which was the Azerbaijan Popular Front (APF). it the first modern parliamentary republic in the Muslim In October of 1991, the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan World. Azerbaijanis today often take pride in the short- adopted a Declaration of Independence that was affirmed lived republic, and point to its accomplishments—such as by a nationwide referendum in December of 1991 when granting universal suffrage to women before the United the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. The primary States or Britain, or establishing Baku State University, the years of independence were overshadowed by the Nagorno- first modern university in the Muslim East—as reason to Karabakh War with Armenia, a conflict that has a current set Azerbaijan apart from its Muslim neighbors. cease-fire but is by no means resolved. By the end of the It was the young republic’s key energy reserves in the war in 1994 Azerbaijan had lost 16% of its territory, and Caspian Sea that prompted Soviet Russia to invade Baku one million internally displaced refugees still live in large in 1920. Vladimir Lenin, the Communist revolutionary makeshift communities around Baku. In 1993 the APF leader, said for instance that the invasion was justified be- leadership was overthrown and former communist KGB cause Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku oil. The official Heydar Aliyev was elected president in an over- Soviet experience helped create a new Azerbaijani identity whelming landslide victory. Aliyev remained president un- that focused on “modernization” and scientific progress, der the New Azerbaijan Party (Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası) arguably at the expense of basic political freedoms, culture, until his death in 2003. Since then, his son Ilham Aliyev and religious freedoms. As a result, large differences exist has served as president. Up to 2005 the government of today between Azerbaijanis who lived in Soviet Azerbaijan Azerbaijan faced a quite vocal and active opposition, which and others who lived south of the Araxes River in Iran. was to some degree spurred by the hope for institutional Both groups led similar existences before 1921, but by the change in ruling elites after the death of Heydar Aliyev time Azerbaijan became an independent republic in 1991 and by the color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. The millions of Soviet Azerbaijanis had served in the Soviet government’s suppression of the opposition has meant that army, attended Soviet universities, and were discouraged little formidable opposition currently exists in Azerbaijan. from following the once dominant Shi’a Islamic practice.6 This could perhaps be why civil society organizations serve Political pluralism was discouraged in Azerbaijan, and in as an alternative space for contestation. 1921 Joseph Stalin, the first General Secretary of the Com- Currently, control of the state political system also means munist Party of the Soviet Union, abolished all indepen- strong control of oil and natural gas export—the life-blood dent political institutions in Azerbaijan’s Musavat party. of the Azerbaijani economy. After gaining independence These policies were carried out in the name of economic Azerbaijan began attracting much needed foreign invest- reconstruction and modernization, with Stalin saying that ment to support the development of its oil and gas indus- integration into the Soviet system would end “the overheat- tries. The first contract was signed in 1994 by SOCAR, 7 ed atmosphere of national hatred.” The Soviets also desired the state oil company of Azerbaijan. The contract began to see Azerbaijan become a progressive Muslim republic, the development of the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) and as they closed mosques and created laws banning women’s deep-water Gunashli oilfields in the Caspian Sea, and is headscarves. referred to in Azerbaijan as the “Contract of the Century” The Soviet Union also indirectly encouraged the growth because its potential reserves are estimated to spur huge of the informal economy, the part of trade that is not economic growth. However, foreign direct investments monitored or taxed by the state. Across post-Soviet spaces from American and other European companies meant the shadow economy and corruption emerged as unofficial the oil sector in the newly created state began to reemerge networks of relations within the complex hierarchies of the before any democratic institutions capable of providing for party-state apparatus.8 In Azerbaijan, the importance of transparency and accountability of the decision-making kinship relations served as a response to the Soviet mar- process had taken root. It seems then that in a political, Hernandez 89 economic, and cultural sense Azerbaijan is still impacted cating this trend that served as one of the earliest questions by its Soviet legacy. Prominent Soviet Azerbaijanis such as that motivated my interest in Azerbaijan. Since the state Nariman Narimonov (Nəriman Kərbəlayi Nərimanov) and relies heavily on energy exports as a form of revenue, will Meshadi Azizbekov (Məşədi Əzizbəyov) are commemo- the same “resource curse” develop there as well? rated in statues, parks, and town names. Answering this question empirically is problematic because corruption perception indices are created by civil society organizations, for civil society organizations, to legitimize the need for civil society interventions. First, given the secretive nature of acts defined as corruption, it is very difficult to reliably measure the number or scope of corrupt state actions. As such, most comparative figures instead focus on quantifying the perception of corruption, not the direct action. Reports by development experts ask for local civil society leaders to answer questions, such as how many times they are required to pay bribes, to quantify the perception of corruption. These perceptions are there- fore not only secondary measures of corruption, but are taken from a small sample of participants who have a vested interest in proving the pervasiveness of state corruption. The second challenge to quantifying corruption is that doing so is imbued with end goals influenced by its intended use. As De Maria says, these indices often serve the market, as Narimonov Statue in Baku. Picture courtesy of transnational corporations need a way to assess the risk of Thomas Hernandez potential foreign direct investment projects, and many polit- ical economists are concerned with how increased corrup- 14 So as to manage the expected increase in energy rev- tion correlates with decreased economic growth. As such, enues, The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) was transparency perception indices do not consider corruption created in 1999 to ensure the “intergenerational distribu- as a hindrance to the state/society relationship, but as an tion of wealth regarding oil funds,”11 which controls the obstruction to a market-oriented business environment. revenues from SOCAR and maintains all state collected Despite these two concerns, the most widely cited measure royalties from multinational oil companies operating in by academics, state institutions, and businesses is the an- Azerbaijan. It was not until 2006 though, when the Baku- nual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) produced by the Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was officially opened, transnational CSO Transparency International. This yearly that Azerbaijan began transporting sizeable quantities of empirical index currently ranks 178 states drawn from 13 crude oil, approximately 1 million barrels from the ACG surveys and assessments published in each state. Azerbaijan, to European markets. For the 2010 fiscal year, SOFAZ as indicated by Table 1, has steadily ranked in the lowest reported earnings of approximately $1.6 billion, a large sum quartile of indexed states. However the CPI’s importance to for a state whose 2010 gross domestic product estimate was us is not that it proves the existence of corruption in Azer- approximately $52 billion. baijan, but that it aids in the construction of Azerbaijan as a corrupt state. Proving the perception of high corruption Corruption and the State therefore sets Azerbaijan as an entity that must be inter- e should not be too surprised that unchallenged vened upon via “political development” initiatives. political control of economic wealth from a single Instead of focusing on how corruption is measured by sourceW could encourage state corruption. Political develop- civil society leaders, I am instead interested in how knowl- ment scholars have for years written about a related concept edge of corruption is operative in the social consciousness known as the “resource curse,” the idea that develop- of Azerbaijanis. After thinking about this, I was in the ing states who export large amounts of natural resources city approximately one hour before hearing one of the most often perform worse economically and socially than their notorious state corruption stories. After I remarked how non-resource rich counterparts.12 As in Venezuela, Iran, or impressive the highways were, my taxi driver retorted, “This Nigeria, state control and reliance on energy revenues in is not a highway. This is a crime scene!” When I inquired what developing states have often promoted increased informal he meant, the driver told me the story of a modern-day uses of state funds.13 It was the abundance of evidence indi- highway robbery. In 2008, the Azerbaijani state government 90 Hernandez Transparency in Azerbaijan

e know the highway’s cost because of new access to information laws in Azerbaijan. Access to informa- Wtion laws and initiatives are part of what James Ferguson calls, the “conceptual apparatus,” the official thinking and planning involved in development studies. In this sec- tion I will explain the conceptual apparatus idealized by transparency discourse. Governmental transparency, or reliable public access to information about state activities, is widely accepted by international development experts as an important method to improve society’s check on governing institutions. Governmental development agencies note that transparency is essential to good governance. It is inherent in the notion that governments should be “participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law.”16 TABLE 1: Corruption Perception Index, courtesy of Wanting to be prescriptive rather than simply analytic, Transparency International (transparency.org) development policy experts have proposed policy measures to correct such effects. For instance, political development decided to upgrade the Azuzbekov highway connecting researcher Ann Florini responds to the phenomenon of the airport to the capital city of Baku, despite having just increased corruption by saying that greater transparency, or finished a similar project a few years prior. For the highway public access to information about state resource revenues, project, the State Transportation Ministry earmarked $315 will help address many of the resource curse problems million for a road that stretched a mere 14 kilometers. That and improve governance. In her view, transparency is in put the price tag at a dubious $23 million per kilometer, demand because it allows citizens to enjoy a wider array of well over the price of what similar highway projects cost. basic rights by increasing their capacity to make informed Many millions of dollars of the expenditures are widely political decisions. Florini considers the theoretical shift in believed to have been siphoned off by politicians and con- decision-making power by saying: struction tycoons. The airport highway has become known Transparency is on the rise, touted as the solution in Baku as the “golden highway” since people say that one to such disparate problems as financial volatility, could pave the road with gold and it would cost less! environmental degradation, money laundering, and The airport highway is by no means the only symbolic corruption. But transparency faces much opposi- physical reminder of state corruption fueled by the energy tion, particularly from those under scrutiny. Such industry. Just as the airport highway served as a symbol actors often have strong incentives to avoid provid- of corruption and state inefficiency to the taxi driver, so ing information. To explain the growing demand do many state projects represent state corruption in the for transparency and to assess its prospects for consciousness of modern-day Azerbaijanis. Predatory rent success requires attention to matters of politics— seeking, weak state institutional capacity, and a lack of that is, power. Power is often needed to induce transparent oversight are believed by Azerbaijani citizens disclosures or restructure incentives. And the to be caused or at least propagated by windfall state profits information thus revealed can shift power from the 17 from oil and gas sector revenues.15 Many citizens will speak former holders of secrets to the newly informed. of innumerable construction projects in Baku alone as Florini goes on to say that greater transparency permits providing an easy means for the leadership to inflate line citizens to hold institutions accountable for their policies items and pocket the excess. But it is not only citizens who and performance, thereby diffusing the state’s monopoly on understand and talk about the level of state corruption in power. Similarly other scholars such as Joseph Stiglitz believe Azerbaijan. Large transnational CSOs, foreign govern- that a citizenry with a greater capacity to make informed ments, and even businesses note that state corruption is decisions will improve governance by allowing citizens to something to be fixed, to be mitigated through technical build support for public leaders, improve decision making solutions and structural adjustments to Azerbaijan’s politi- abilities, and help deter corruption.18 For the proponents of cal and legal apparatus. These technical solutions are the this model, good governance can be achieved in part through focus of the next section. the successful implementation of transparency mechanisms. Hernandez 91 In Azerbaijan, transparency efforts have been a source an informed way which is favorable to their situation.”22 of pride for the state government and multinational oil If the government does not behave according to the terms companies.19 To say that it is a hot topic within Azerbaijani set by the voters, in principle it can be replaced through political and business circles would be an understatement, an election.23 Within this model, accountability does not and in this connection the most publicized effort has been work properly when information is scarce; therefore greater the internationally accessible Extractive Industries Trans- transparency is presumed to lead to a greater ability for parency Initiative (EITI), which was launched in 2002 by citizens to make informed political decisions. the former United Kingdom Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Approximately four years have passed since the imple- The EITI is a voluntary initiative that aims to increase the mentation of EITI in Azerbaijan, so we should perhaps see transparency of natural resource revenues by developing signs that it is working. But a great deal of evidence points standardized reporting requirements for companies and to the continuation of the status quo. 20 governments. The Azerbaijani government was one of the In addition to the EITI, the Azerbaijani Parliament first in the world to enact the initiative. Indeed the Cabinet passed the Freedom of Information Act in 2005. The act of Ministers formed The National EITI Committee in constitutionally ensured the public’s right to obtain infor- 2003, making Azerbaijan the first-ever ratified member. mation on state activities including budgetary information. The EITI principles—the cornerstone of the initiative— However there are also serious gaps between the guarantees state “that a public understanding of government revenues of the Act and its implementation. The Authorized Agency and expenditure will help public debate and inform choice on Information Matters or Information Ombudsman of appropriate and realistic options for sustainable de- 21 envisioned by the act has not been set up, nor has the single velopment.” The formation of the EITI initiative was electronic registry of documents available on the Internet historically an important landmark, as it also encouraged been created. No systematic and comprehensive training the growth of a more robust formal civil society sector. It for those civil servants required to respond to requests for was out of the EITI initiative that the first CSO coalition information has been provided, and there have been no formed, and the subsequent founding of the organizations instances of public civil servants being held accountable for examined in this article. failure to comply with the requirements of the aforemen- Going beyond the pragmatic arguments for transparency tioned law. However state ministries have improved their found in the EITI, proponents of transparency make tacit performance in replying to queries and, as a result, the rate moral claims about what an ideal society should look like. of responses to information queries is in the range of 25- This article will show that transparency theory implies the 30% for the general public and 70-75% for civil society or- existence of a certain type of society, namely one with a po- ganizations.24 A number of government agencies have also litically active citizenry, a robust civil society, and high trust enhanced their websites and set up information hotlines, in the public sector. The discourse of international transpar- speeding up the process of obtaining information. ency initiatives works under the development framework of Additionally, societal acceptance of democratic mecha- “capacity building,” based on the work of the Nobel prize nisms, such as voting rights, and the effectiveness of pro- winning sociologist and development scholar Amaryta Sen. testing that greater transparency is intended to bolster have In his model, development as an ideology should focus not not yet materialized. Annual survey data from the Caucasus on aid alone, but on increasing the capability of individuals Research Resource Center’s25 2009 survey of approximately so that they may seek out things like nourishment, literacy, 1700 Azerbaijanis found that when respondents were asked or good health for themselves. This process occurs, accord- if protesting was an effective tool in enacting change, only ing to Sen, through increasing a person’s “entitlements,” or 35.5% of respondents answered “yes.” Also, when asked if set of commodities that a person can command in a society their vote in national elections “makes a difference,” only using the totality of rights and opportunities. Entitlements 9.1% responded “yes.” While there are clearly a number of can include access to transportation facilities, public health factors that influence responses, it seems that despite the services, or adroitly functioning democratic apparatuses. adoption of landmark transparency legislation Azerbaijani While Sen did not specifically address transparency citizens have not begun to trust democracy as a way to initiatives as an entitlement, political development policy enact change. makers have borrowed capacity building language. They Along with continued corruption and society’s distrust note Sen’s inclusion of “functioning democratic appa- of democratic mechanisms, an interesting paradox presents ratuses” as the reason resource transparency acts as an itself from the CRRC’s survey data. When asked for the entitlement. Luis Bresser for instance writes that if citizens most important issue facing their country, 20.8% of respon- of resource rich states are given knowledge about revenue dents said “corruption.”26 Yet interestingly, respondents re- expenditures, then “they will have the capacity to act in port trust of the state bodies that control resource revenues, 92 Hernandez ency efforts, seeking out their perspective proved difficult and ultimately unhelpful to the larger project of explaining the constructive nature of transparency implementation. Actors within state institutions have a vested interest in blocking access to information, and transnational oil com- panies, typically cited “state sovereignty” as the reason for their non-interventionist approach in enhancing “political development” of any sort. The following table lists the organizations and mis- sion statements of the groups analyzed in this study. The statements were obtained from the organizations’ printed publications and websites.

TABLE 2: 2008 Public Trust in Azerbaijani Government Branches, courtesy of Caucasus Research Resource Center (crrc.az) the very bodies that Western governments and civil society groups blame for being the primary beneficiaries in cor- rupt acts. The parliament, the judiciary, and the executive branches all have high levels of approval from respondents, as indicated in Table 2. Most notably, President Aliyev received high levels of trust from respondents even though he is described by many as the one who benefits most from resource revenue rentierism. The juxtaposition of these two facts presents a seeming contradiction because it demonstrates that many citizens recognize that corruption is a problem in Azerbaijan, but there are still many who are supportive of the ruling gov- ernment. While it is not the goal of this paper to explain this phenomenon, it presents an interesting difficulty for transparency advocates. Even if society has knowledge of, and access to information about the state budget, they may still be reluctant to challenge the state apparatus they believe to be responsible for state corruption. CSO Profiles TABLE 3: CSO Organization Mission Statements (various sources) nlike other anthropological analyses of “develop- ment”27 which focus on the subjects to be developed The civil society organizations analyzed in this study (typicallyU grouped as “the poor”) I focus on the ideas and mirrored the theoretical discourse of transparency outlined understandings of the groups doing the developing, or above, emphasizing the importance of budgetary knowl- CSO organizations and their leadership. This group is a edge as enhancing the “society” and the “state,” through the small pocket of Azerbaijani citizens who are involved in enhancement of “participatory democracy” and “citizen en- “political development” through transparency advocacy. gagement.” The organizations reviewed are all young, formed These are individuals who work for endogenous civil soci- after the establishment of the EITI initiative six years ago. It ety organizations with the explicit purpose of increasing is important to note that each group was founded by and is resource contract, revenue, and budgetary transparency. usually receiving primary funding from external sources such I have chosen to analyze interview data from this group as the United States Agency for International Development because they claim to represent the mediators between (USAID), the World Bank, external embassies such as the society, state institutions, and the private sector. While Norwegian Embassy, and transnational CSOs such as The both the SOFAZ and locally operating transnational oil Soros Foundation. Keeping in mind the influence such fund- companies such as BP and Statoil are involved in transpar- Hernandez 93 ing relations create, I contend that while endogenous civil ing done to reach these goals? society groups share roughly similar mission statements, they 3. How do CSO local leaders interact with gov- differ from their donors’ missions of an ideal democratic soci- ernment officials? ety in the sense that they see themselves as experts speaking 4. What problems does your organization face in on behalf of the society. achieving its mission and goals? Twelve interviews were conducted from June 14, 2010- 5. Do you think Azerbaijan is headed in the right July 8, 2010, in the capital city of Baku. All took place dur- direction? ing work hours in the offices of these organizations, which Mirroring the rhetoric of each organization’s mission had been named by EITI to serve as the civil society moni- statements, respondents answered questions 1 and 2 by toring section of the initiative. Interviewees ranged in age pointing to the greater Azerbaijani “society” that ben- from 23 to 64, included 3 women and 9 men. A total of 10 efits from transparency initiatives. However Azerbaijani interviews were conducted in English and 2 were trans- “society” was constructed by interviewees as a holistic lated from Russian. Almost all interviewees have worked non-stratified whole, obscuring gender, class, and politi- or studied in Europe or North America within the last 15 cal power relations as subcategories that may benefit from years. Interviewees had a variety of work and education greater budgetary knowledge. It is not within the purview experiences, including teaching at state universities, work- of this paper to explain the process of constructing society ing in the state oil ministry as top officials, leading opposi- as a unified whole, but this finding nonetheless indicates tion parties, or attending college abroad. While personal that transparency initiatives are taken to apply to Azerbai- experiences varied greatly among the interviewee pool, they jani society as a singular entity. For instance, when I asked were similar in that each interviewee had achieved a post- one of the younger male interviewees if transparency initia- secondary education degree or higher (often in a European tives helped a group within Azerbaijani society more than or North American university), had a modest but comfort- others, he responded by saying: able salary, and had access to international social networks through a supporting exogenous institution. The study No, no every Azerbaijani without class will benefit design, informed consent, and confidentiality procedures from EITI. Nobody will benefit more because were approved by institutional review boards at Washing- everybody will have one vote. If there are many ton University in St. Louis on May 26, 2010. poor villagers in Sheki [Azerbaijani province] then they will elect new leaders to better the economic Construction of the “Sovietization of situation. Transparency makes it so every person the Mind” can participate. People just need to believe that the budget is for them not for Aliyev [the president]. Civil society organization interviewees, while espousing With these comments we see that the interviewee indicates the benefits and impact of transparency as outlined in the that greater budgetary transparency will help “every Azer- previous section, employed an explanatory framework that baijani” with no mention of who will actually carry out this seemed to contradict the viability of transparency’s ability plan. These views were further reflected in the mission state- to bring about change. Specifically civil society leaders de- ments found on the organizations’ websites and in printed fined the “greater society” as a single and non-differentiated literature that are typically given to donors and scholars. entity that is incapable of utilizing increased state budget- ary knowledge on their own. Interview data taken from Question 3 yielded the most unified response from the summer of 2010 was used to (a) analyze CSO leaders’ interviewees, in that their interactions with government understanding of transparency and good governance (b) leaders primarily occur through the budget review process. explain the relationship between CSO leaders and govern- Answers to this question also revealed that opposition lead- ment officials and (c) collect CSO leaders’ perceptions of ers were more inclined to openly participate and support the viability of transparency initiatives in Azerbaijan. All their efforts and initiatives. One interviewee noted that if interviewees were asked the same set of general questions, a majority YAP parliamentarian was seen with one of his followed by a series of specific questions tailored to their or- organization’s documents, the parliamentarian would be ganizations. The follow-up questions were meant to clarify accused by other YAP politicians of conspiring with the the goals of organization-specific programs and initiatives. opposition. A few opposition parties collaborate with the The general interview questions were as follows: CSOs. Because the opposition parties, such as the Equality Party (Müsavat Partiyası) or the Azerbaijan Popular Front 1. What stakeholders benefit from transparency Party (Azərbaycan Xalq Cəbhəsi Partiyası), are smaller and initiatives, in theory and in practice? lack revenue, these politicians use CSO reports to criticize 2. What are the short- and long-term goals of YAP policy decisions. transparency initiative endorsers, and what is be- 94 Hernandez While questions 1 through 3 were important in under- outlets and citizens. While not all interviewees expressed standing the explicit motives of civil society organizations concern over their own safety, one interviewee when asked and showed how they constructed Azerbaijani society as a whether his personal safety was compromised by his work unified whole, Questions 4 and 5 are of primary interest to said, “It’s not that easy to live here; they kept that old KGB29 this article. Interviewee responses about the challenges that system that keeps us wondering.” Interviewees also cited transparency efforts face and about the general direction of mechanisms that keep citizens afraid to speak about, or the country shared a general frustration with the “minds” report on, contentious political issues. Several interviewees of Azerbaijani citizens and government leaders. They explained cases where citizens organizing protests were expressed a frustration that problematizes public conscious- arrested on supposed drug possession charges or for “public ness in such a way that “society” is viewed as incapable of indecency.” For instance, a lot of attention was given by lo- using budgetary information to enhance a participatory cal and international media to the conviction of two young voice. As Mr. Sizad reminded himself in a quote noted bloggers for “public indecency.” The bloggers have received earlier, knowledge is of no use when left in the hands of so much attention because they were also writing anti-gov- a disinterested public. One way to conceptualize this is ernment sentiments, and it is alleged by CSO interviewees through what is termed by CSO leaders as a “Sovietization that the indecency charge was spurious. The case of the two of the mind”28 and the effects that the collapse of the Soviet young men was mentioned several times by interviewees as Union had on the population’s trust in government institu- one of many examples of intimidation and use of political tions. While by no means the only explanatory mechanism, power to silence dissenting voices. Respondents described this phrase was used often by interviewees and more gener- intimidation tactics as a challenge to perceived political ally refers to the adoption of a way of life and mentality that agency, which also contributes to the general public’s lack emerged in the Soviet Union era. Attributes of the “Soviet- of political protest. A respondent noted that “Azerbaijanis ization of the mind” include distrust of government, lack of are not willing to fight for their rights; they give up eas- ownership of government budgets, a residual culture of fear ily.” As such, there is little perceived activism even on issues and silence, and a general depression. The interview data I that people have strong opinions about. Several respondents provide will help explain how civil society leaders construct explained that the existence of an “I don’t care” attitude the Azerbaijani public as possessing all of those attributes. towards bribery and corruption meant even with access to Civil society group interviewees pointed to the “Sovi- information, little action against corrupt state actors would etization” of the public sector, which has led to a general come about. distrust among citizens of each other and the government The interviewees who had interacted with community as a reason for the irrelevance of transparency initiatives in members through CSO initiated programs noted that a Azerbaijan. One woman interviewee in her mid-thirties concept of citizen ownership of state funds does not yet said, “a lot of our obstacles, why we have such problems on exist and is only promoted by SOFAZ’s distant relation to the free market, is because of Soviet values. Not just in our public revenues. One of the interviewees said: country, but in other Post-Soviet countries.” She explained The most common thing I hear from citizens is, that there are common problems related to a distinctly “So- “I’m not paying anything to the budget, it’s all in viet mind” that still exists. Another organization member oil revenues. Therefore I don’t need to care about noted that this mindset exists by saying: it.” This is a great problem because of an absence People cannot see the correlation between their ac- of feeling ownership of resources which makes it tions and change; they cannot see that they have to hard for people to care. be active in order for there to be change. Citizens Indeed a common feature of resource rich states during pe- are not really interested [in government], but the riods of great export is comparatively low taxes.30 While this CSO sector and the opposition is interested. Even may mean the state can provide services without excising though the CSO and opposition are not powerful, taxes, interviewees explained that one consequence of this they are still interested. approach is the belief that the state budget is not publicly Thus one of the primary distinctions CSO interviewees owned or litigated. Similarly other interviewees explained made was between an impartial public and a more interested the many other daily worries the vast majority of Azerbai- and enlightened CSO sector. The interviewees implicitly as- janis face in regards to employment, education and health- sume that citizens are not aware of their rights and thus will care. Interviewees described concerns tied to the immediate never be able to enact “change.” Later in the interview, the wellbeing of citizens as reasons for an overall disinterest in individual noted that Azerbaijanis were left with a residue budgetary particularities. One older interviewee who had of distrust of one another from the Soviet era. This takes formerly taught in a state university said, “It is a luxury to the form of a culture of fear and self-censorship by media care about such things here.” Hernandez 95 Last, many interviewees highlighted the traumatic nature such as the Open Society Institute’s “Civic Responsibility that the post-Soviet experience had on them and their Network,” an initiative meant to increase civic participa- families. One interviewee explained that the older genera- tion and by training local CSO groups how to request state tion of Azerbaijanis experienced an “invisible depression” agency information and how to involve local people in their derived from seeing one system collapse and another created, decision-making processes. When asked about the successes followed by an increasingly distant young generation that and challenges the program faced, one interviewee said: looks beyond what they were able to imagine as citizens of So far 46 CSOs have been trained, who mostly the Soviet era. Furthermore, after the collapse of the Soviet work in the regions. We are very happy about Union, many people lost all of their life savings. This hap- that. In one case there was no drinking water in pened because many of the banks in which they had placed a village, and an investigation showed that there their savings were shut down in the span of a few days. One was equipment purchased but it was not working. interviewee explained that this was the reason why “people’s So they got the Minister of Ecology and Minis- minds are not rendered towards a market economy.” As such, ter of Finance involved and solved this problem. the new system of democratic participation calls on people to To answer your question about challenges, the go well beyond what they understand and believe. national budget is a very sensitive topic, more so The interviewees described Sovietization as a prevalent way than human rights, than democracy. The people of thinking about the state government. In the Center for feel pressure from the government not to ask ques- Economic and Political Research’s latest policy recommenda- tions, so it is hard to engage with them. tions guide, the document’s authors assert that the primary The CRN was created by The Open Society Institute to problem the state faces is the remnants of a Soviet mentality, address a technical problem (local CSOs’ lack of knowledge in that a large gap and a weak relationship exist between au- about performing agency inquiries), to involve an otherwise thorities and citizens. The Soviet mentality includes no for- voiceless public, and to hold ministers accountable. Yet the mal dialogue mechanisms or accountability systems between interviewee claimed that because public mentality has been government officials and citizens. The document states: so affected by Sovietization, they are still reluctant to partici- The [aforementioned problems] are a continuation pate in CSO efforts because of perceived state pressure. The of the Soviet tradition of alienating the government existence of all these efforts to increase civic engagement from the people combined with the well-known suggests that transparency initiatives will not be effective inclination to authoritarianism typical for countries when there is a disinterested or cautious public. with oriental and Islamic mentality. The govern- 31 In general, I find that civil society members’ explanations ment pyramid in Azerbaijan is upside down. of the “Sovietization of the mind” provide a useful umbrella Additionally, the report noted problems of protectionism for their understanding of the negative factors that cause and nepotism, noting: a lack of perceived political agency. Transparency theory The nomenklatura system,32 which was affected typically assumes that if citizens are given knowledge of by protectionism, group interests and nepotism in where money is being spent, they will have the capacity and Soviet times, was destroyed following the collapse motivation to act against politicians who work against their of the Communist Party. However, the sources interests. The interview and textual data I have presented, moved to the new apparatus of public administra- however, suggest that CSO leaders in Azerbaijan contend tion and became quite widespread. 33 that for capacity to be built there must be cognitive rel- evance for the entitlement, which to them is not fully pres- Hence civil society groups in Azerbaijan express a need ent. As such, the theory of civil society being the arbiter for transparency not simply for the purpose of connecting between the state and society is called into question, and citizens to their governments, but as a way of holding politi- among other things, this promotes their own importance as cians accountable in a way not allowed during the Soviet era. representatives of Azerbaijani society. Some groups responded to this challenge through specific projects aimed at increasing civic participation or measuring Lastly, interviewees indicated that the inclusion of CSO success through engagement with state ministers. These are leaders in the state budget making process via account- usually described as “de-Sovietization” efforts and suggest ability mechanisms found in the EITI and Access to that respondents do not currently view the capacity build- Information Laws reinforces the notion that they are the ing framework as viable in their country. De-Sovietization representatives of the greater society. These accountability efforts included specific programs and initiatives that each mechanisms—which require the state budget office to hold organization implemented as a means of increasing the ef- bi-annual consultation meetings with civil society leaders fectiveness of transparency initiatives. These included things and the office of accountability to honor budget informa- tion requests—legitimate civil society leaders’ participation 96 Hernandez in the budget decision process. These laws create spaces for society-enhancing tool. Ben Worthy for instance indicated civil society groups to have access to budgetary informa- that increases in state budgetary knowledge may not lead to tion, criticize unfavorable policies, and request changes in greater trust on a societal level. Worthy found that even in budget allocations. Inclusion of non-political organizations the United Kingdom, a state that, compared to Azerbaijan, in the political budget making process thus may serve not has much less perceived state corruption, the enactment of to create a stronger state/society relationship, as the trans- transparency laws did not produce greater political partici- parency theory supposes, but to establish a new mechanism pation. 37 Worthy however stops short at explaining what of participation for civil society leaders. In Azerbaijan, this transparency mechanisms do if they do not fulfill their may be done by the inclusion of critical elements of civil intended effect. I suggest in this study that one such effect society in the budget review process. is to reinforce the assumption that it is up to CSOs, not the The Unintended Consequences of public, to watch state activities. Finally, it is worth noting that the construction of the Development “Sovietization of the mind” to explain the weakness of the f CSO leaders construct the general society as incapable state/society relationship is not limited to CSO leaders of turning knowledge into action, then for whom is Mr. in Azerbaijan. The prominent Russian writer Alexander ISizad’s quote useful? Some insight into this question can Zinoyev notes, for example, two common features of “Sovi- be derived from returning to the conceptual framework of etization,” which are indifference to common property and James Ferguson, who explains that even “failed” develop- petty theft from the workplace and obedience or passive ac- ment projects can bring about important structural chang- ceptance of everything that government imposes on them. es.34 The construction of Azerbaijani citizens as having An abundance of post-Soviet research in the social sciences mental inclinations that make them unlikely to participate has tried to explain the “weakness” of civil society in post- 38 in democracy is part of the picture in the case, and this has Soviet spaces in terms of a shared Soviet legacy. Whether effects on initiatives that CSOs implement. Using Michel or not the effects of “Sovietization” are real, future scholars Foucault’s concepts of “governmentality” and “knowledge/ should consider not only why civil society is relatively weak power”—taken as the organized practices (mentalities, in post-Soviet spaces, but also how this explanation might rationalities, and techniques) through which subjects are further perpetuate the “Sovietization of the mind” narrative governed35 --Ferguson’s analysis of planned technical devel- for governments and development policy makers. opment interventions suggests the likelihood of unintended Conclusions outcomes that end up “incorporated into constellations of control (authorless strategies in Foucault’s sense) that turn Even though this work does not seek to explain the “re- out in the end to have a kind of political intelligibility.”36 In source curse” or prescriptive measures that could mitigate Azerbaijan the construction of citizens as apathetic, afraid, its effects in Azerbaijan, it does provide an understanding or unable to use budgetary knowledge imparts this form of of the way in which locally operating civil society groups knowledge/power. imagine problems in ways that view the everyday Azerbai- As such it may be nobody’s explicit intent to take away jani as incapable of producing political change. Interview the participatory power of citizens in Azerbaijan (in fact responses suggest that the concept of “good governance” CSOs claim to do just the opposite), but civil society can be embraced by civil society groups in theory but can be organizations can help reify this authorless strategy by implemented via unforeseen pathways. In theory greater ac- reaffirming the belief in the lack of political agency on the cess to information via the EITI and Access to Information part of citizens. Those putting knowledge into practice Act would mean greater ability for large-scale public mo- are not then, as transparency theory supposes, the larger bilization. In practice, it seems that the people who utilize society making “proper” use of democratic mechanisms, but these new transparency mechanisms are a small, Western a small and educated sector of society whose careers it is to educated group of intellectuals who have found a way for represent society’s interests. It may therefore not be just a their organizations to plug in to the political system. While coercive state but the shared belief that citizens lack agency, there are social, institutional, and economic explanations which prevents the use of budgetary information as a tool for the challenges to transparency or the mismanagement for direct action. Transparency discourse therefore creates of resource revenues, the way in which civil society leaders a legitimized space for participatory contestation of the explain this failure is in the context of a socio-historical state’s activities, but contestation is understood to be in the narrative linked to Sovietization, which is important to domain of CSOs. understand, for it influences their policy decisions. The findings I have reported are consistent with those This study treats “society” as an undifferentiated unit who have questioned the efficacy of transparency as a state/ because it is the way both transparency theory and CSO Hernandez 97 leaders define it. However further work should nuance the in the Soviet Union,” Osteuropa 55, no. 10 (2005): 210. differences gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, class, or 9 Ibid., 220. place of residence plays in the implementation and viability 10 Ibid., 221. of access to information initiatives. While this study is not 11 State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan, http://www.oilfund.az/en. (ac- the only mechanism that shapes policy, or is an indepen- cessed January 1, 2011). dent explanatory model, the narrative created by CSO lead- 12 James A. Robinson, “Political Foundations of the Resource ers must be included in any discussion about the unforeseen Curse,” Journal of Development Economics 79, no. 2 (2006): 447. impacts of transparency initiatives. 13 Terry Lynn Karl, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro- States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), iv. Mr. Sizad’s comment symbolizes a deviation from the theory of political development, but shows how its imple- 14 William De Maria, “Why Is the President of Malawi So Angry? Towards an Ethnography of Corruption,” Culture and mentation is still operational in changing the imagined Organization 16, no. 2 (2010): 145. realities of the state/society relationship. In this article I 15 “Predatory rent seeking” occurs when an individual, organi- have investigated how the implementation of “political zation or firm seeks to earn income by capturing economic development” initiatives in the Republic of Azerbaijan re- rent through manipulation or exploitation of the economic structures representations of the subject to be developed, by or political environment. An example would be a construc- tion firm paying a bribe in order to receive a large govern- conceptualizing the body politic as lacking agency and by ment contract. “Weak state institutional capacity” refers to providing civil society leaders a space for political participa- the state’s inability to effectively allocate resources. “Lack of tion. As Ferguson says, even “failed” development projects transparent oversight” refers to the absence of clear or reliable 39 mechanisms that provide information on state activities, can lead to real structural changes in the state. In the case including spending. Some say that the state has an increased of transparency initiatives in Azerbaijan, those real changes incentive to keep spending information secret because it have significant impacts. First, access to state budgetary in- wants to monopolize the large sums of revenue it controls. formation creates a form of participatory political power for 16 James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” civil society leaders. Second, civil society leaders construct Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). society as lacking the capacity to affect the types of political 17 Ann Florini, ed., The Right to Know: Transparency for an Open change these leaders would like to see. World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 1. 18 Joseph E. Stiglitz, Foreword to The Right to Know: Trans- parency for an Open World, by Ann Florini, ed. (New York: 1 The name Mr. Sizad is a pseudonym, as all interviews were Columbia University Press, 2007), vi. conducted anonymously. “Siz ad” means “without name” in 19 Much to the chagrin of civil society organizations, the State Azerbaijani. Oil Fund of Azerbaijan won the United Nation’s 2007 Public 2 CSOs are also considered by other scholars as non-govern- Service Award, for Improving Transparency, Accountability mental organizations (NGOs). I specifically choose instead and Responsiveness in Public Service. Watchdog groups say to use the term “civil society organization” because of the this exemplary status has meant that government officials attention civil society has been given in post-Soviet spaces; respond to their concerns by reminding them that the state see Marc Morje Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post- received the award, which serves as proof of the successful Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, implementation of transparency initiatives. 2003). Civil society is taken to be forms of voluntary and 20 Specifically, it requires SOFAZ and multinational oil compa- social organizations that are outside the structures of state nies working in Azerbaijan to report revenues on a bi-annual institutions and commercial institutions of the market. basis. An external auditor then compares SOFAZ’s reported 3 Larry Jay Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consoli- revenues, with all of the oil companies’ reported payments, in dation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); hopes that the two numbers will be equal. Jon Elster, The Roundtable Talks and the Breakdown of Com- 21 EITI Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, “The EITI munism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Mary Principles and Criteria.” Web. http://eiti.org/eiti/principles. Kaldor and Ivan Vejvoda, Democratization in Central and Eastern Europe (London: Pinter, 1999). 22 Pereira Bresser, Luiz Carlos, Jose Maravall, and Adam Prze- worski, “Economic Reforms in New Democracies: A Social 4 The “resource curse” is a term given to countries with Democratic Approach,” in Latin American Political Economy an abundance of natural resources that tend to have less in the Age of Neoliberal Reform: Theoretical and Comparative economic growth and worse development outcomes than Perspectives for the 1990s (Coral Gables, FL: North-South countries with fewer natural resources. Center, University of Miami, 1994), 181. 5 Michael Warner and Rory Sullivan, Putting Partnerships to 23 This notion comes from traditional American social scientists Work: Strategic Alliances for Development between Government, such as Kesselmen, who regard political order as dependent the Private Sector and Civil Society (Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf upon value consensus. Publishing, 2004), 99. 24 European Neighborhood Policy: Monitoring Azerbaijan’s 6 Thomas De Wall, The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford: AntiCorruption Commitments. Report. Baku: Transparency Oxford University Press, 2010), 74. International, 2010. 7 Ibid., 133. 25 The Caucasus Research Resource Centers program (CRRC) 8 R. Mrowczynski, “Administrative Hierarchies and Networks is a network of research and training centers established in 98 Hernandez 2003 in the capital cities of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Geor- gia with the goal of strengthening social science research and University Press, 2010. public policy analysis in the South Caucasus. Diamond, Larry Jay. Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. 26 Interestingly, this number was only 2nd out of 15 response Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. choices, and was beaten only by “maintaining territorial Di Renzio, Paolo, Pamela Gomez, and James Sheppard. Budget integrity,” which is a sensitive topic given Azerbaijan’s un- Transparency and Development in Resource-Dependent Coun- resolved dispute with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh tries. Report. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2009. region. EITI Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. “The EITI 27 See also: June C. Nash, We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Principles and Criteria.” Web. http://eiti.org/eiti/principles. Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); and Aihwa Ong, Elster, Jon. The Roundtable Talks and the Breakdown of Communism. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Malaysia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987). European Neighborhood Policy: Monitoring Azerbaijan’s Anti-Cor- 28 This term was popularized by writers such as Alexander ruption Commitments. Report. Baku: Transparency Interna- Zinovyev in his book Homo Sovieticus, (Boston: Atlantic tional, 2010. Monthly Press, 1985). Evans, Peter B. “Predatory, Developmental, and Other Appara- 29 The KGB was an internal security, intelligence, and secret tuses: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the police organization during the existence of the Soviet Union, Third World State.” Sociological Forum 4, no. 4 (1989): 561-87. and is known for extensively monitoring public and private Ferguson, James. The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” De- opinion, internal subversion, and possible revolutionary plots politicization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Cambridge: in the Soviet Bloc. Cambridge University Press, 1990. 30 Karl, The Paradox of Plenty, 171. Florini, Ann, ed. The Right to Know: Transparency for an Open 31 Center for Economic and Political Research, 2009 Policy World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Recommendation Guide, 11. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 32 Nomenklatura were a small elite group within the Soviet Union New York: Vintage Books, 1979. and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key adminis------. The Foucault Reader. Edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: trative positions in all spheres of those countries' activities such Vintage Books, 2010. as government, industry, agriculture, and education. Haller, Dieter, and Cris Shore. Corruption: Anthropological Perspec- 33 Center for Economic and Political Research, 2009 Policy tives. London: Pluto Press, 2005. Recommendation Guide, 12. Heradstveit, Daniel, and Helge Hveem. Oil in the Gulf: Obstacles 34 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine, 16. to Democracy and Development. Aldershot, Hants, England: 35 Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow Ashgate, 2004. (New York: Vintage Books, 2010), 111. Hoffman, David I. Oil and Development in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Re- 36 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine, 21. port. Washington DC: National Bureau for Asian Research, 1999. 37 Ben Worthy, “More Open But Not More Trusted? The Effect of Howard, Marc Morje. The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Commu- the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the United Kingdom nist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Central Government,” Governance 23, no. 4 (October 2010), 561. Idemudia, Uwafiokun. “The Quest for the Effective Use of Natu- 38 See: Joseph Rothschild, Return to Diversity: A Political His- ral Resource Revenue in Africa: Beyond Transparency and tory of East Central Europe Since World War II (New York: the Need for Compatible Cultural Democracy in Nigeria.” Oxford University Press, 1989); and Howard, The Weakness of Africa Today 56, no. 2 (2009): 2-24. Civil Society. Kaldor, Mary, and Ivan Vejvoda. Democratization in Central and 39 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine, 276. Eastern Europe. London: Pinter, 1999. Karl, Terry Lynn. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro- States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Bibliography Lapkin, V. V., and V. I. Pantin. “Assimilation of Democratic Institutions by the Ukranian and Russian Masses.” Russian Babajanian, Babken. “Social Capital and Community Participa- Politics and Law 44, no. 2 (2006): 50-71. tion in Post-Soviet Armenia.” Europe-Asia Studies 60, no. 8 (2008): 1299-1319. Lucas, Richard. “Supporting Public Service Broadcasting in Azerbaijan.” Helsinki Monitor 18, no. 4 (2007): 303-09. Bresser Pereira, Luiz Carlos, Jose Maravall, and Adam Prze- worski. “Economic Reforms in New Democracies: A Social Mrowczynski, R. “Administrative Hierarchies and Networks in Democratic Approach.” Chap. 7 in Latin American Political the Soviet Union.” Osteuropa 55, no. 10 (2005). Economy in the Age of Neoliberal Reform: Theoretical and Com- Nash, June C. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency parative Perspectives for the 1990s, 181-206. Coral Gables, FL: and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines. New York: Columbia North-South Center, University of Miami, 1994. University Press, 1979. De Maria, William. “Why Is the President of Malawi So Angry? Ong, Aihwa. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Towards an Ethnography of Corruption.” Culture and Organi- Women in Malaysia. Albany: State University of New York zation 16, no. 2 (2010): 145-162. Press, 1987. De Waal, Thomas. The Caucasus: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford Parekh, Bhikhu. “The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democ- Hernandez 99 racy.” Political Studies, 1992, 160-75. The Petroleum and Poverty Paradox: Assessing U.S. and International Community Efforts to Fight the Resource Curse. Report. Wash- ington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008. Prasad, Pushkala. “The Colonizing Consciousness and Represen- tations of the Other.” In Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity, 285-310. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997. Public Finance Monitoring Center. “Sovereign Wealth Funds: Global Perspectives and Local Challenges.” News Release, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2009. Robinson, James A. “Political Foundations of the Resource Curse.” Journal of Development Economics 79, no. 2 (2006). Rothschild, Joseph. Return to Diversity: A Political History of East Central Europe Since World War II. New York: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1989. Sen, Amaryta. “Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation.” Economic Debate 62, no. 6 (1982). State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan. http://www.oilfund.az/en (ac- cessed January 1, 2011). “State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic.” ARDNF - Azərbaycan Respublikası Dövlət Neft Fondu. http://www.oilfund.az/en/ news/189 (accessed February 3, 2011). Stiglitz, Joseph E. “Foreword.” In The Right to Know: Transparency for an Open World, edited by Ann Florini. New York: Colum- bia University Press, 2007. Theobald, Robin. Corruption, Development, and Underdevelop- ment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990. United States of America. CIA. World Factbook: Azerbaijan. 2010. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ geos/aj.html (accessed October 15, 2010). Warner, Michael, and Rory Sullivan. Putting Partnerships to Work: Strategic Alliances for Development between Government, the Private Sector and Civil Society. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing, 2004. Worthy, Ben. “More Open But Not More Trusted? The Effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the United King- dom Central Government.” Governance 23, no. 4 (October 2010): 561-82. Zinoviev, Aleksandr. Homo Sovieticus. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1985.

100 Hernandez Senderologist Literature: Gendered Language and Representations of Women in the Shining Path

Maria Santos

Abstract: Gender is sometimes overlooked as a category of analysis, even though it functions as a tool of social categorization. Most social identity categories are limiting and prescriptive because the characteristics of each are thought to be inherent or essential. My article highlights how representations of revolutionary women who perform gender-atypical acts of violence reify essentialist views about women as emotional and sacrificial. Using the guerrilla women of the Shining Path as a case study, I will highlight the problems that arise when scholars and journalists fail to acknowledge how a gendered discourse can influence women’s experiences. Alternatively, when they use gender as a category of analysis, it is to reify the differences between men and women. Their limited nuance of gender creates representations that can be prescriptive and limiting for women, and men, who are not conforming to essentialist gender tropes.

n 1982, roughly 30,000 people attended Edith Lagos contribution of women; at best, an anthology includes a Saez’s funeral in Ayacucho, Peru.1 Edith Lagos Saez is chapter about women’s roles in the Shining Path, but of Ia central figure in the history of women’s participation in those chapters, many focus on women as the peacekeepers the “Shining Path” (Sendero Luminoso),2 a Maoist terrorist or as figures of resistance to the violence. In the rela- group in Peru that attempted to overthrow the Peruvian tively small archive of information about female Shining government by means of widespread and persistent violence Path members in Senderologist literature, the analysis in the 1980s. Edith Lagos’s assassination is legendary, and and representations of these women is largely superficial, journalists and scholars have retold her story many times; meaning that it is not founded on primary sources or on the the varying versions add to the different interpretations of women’s personal narratives. The Senderologists’ diction her life. Although Edith is perhaps the most mystical and and conclusions about the female terrorists’ bodies suggest legendary woman in the Shining Path (SP), and in spite of that they base their ideas on general inferences or inconclu- all that journalists and scholars have written, little factual sive information rather than researched accounts of these information is known about her. Due to the strict and women’s experiences. violent nature of the Shining Path’s communist doctrine When Senderologists (or other scholars who do not use and its ideologies, information about the movement, its gender as a primary category of analysis) are missing infor- participants and their actions is limited. Factual informa- mation about the experiences of women, their writing relies tion about the women who participated in the Shining Path primarily on external witness information. For example, the is particularly scarce. narratives about Shining Path women are limited to stories Both scholarly literature about violent women in politi- shared by one terrorist’s acquaintances and friends and politi- cally subversive movements and literature about the Sendero cal interpretations of their bodies by journalists, Senderolo- Luminoso (Senderologist literature)3 mention women’s active gists, Sendero terrorists and even the people of the highlands. participation in the movement, but each frames women’s Because these external sources interrogate poorly how gender involvement differently, ascribing to them different levels affects the experiences and actions of these women, they of agency. Much of the literature on violent women in rely on long-held stereotypical beliefs about what is thought revolutionary movements includes discussions of the Send- to be essentially feminine. Thus, while scholars draw from ero women as prime examples of women who participated these outside sources, they also participate in the validation in various roles: leaders, fighters, and supporters.4 The and promulgation of uncritical, essentialist gender assump- language of the literature often highlights the anomalous tions. They are contributing to women’s inability to represent nature of the violent woman and often includes evidence themselves accurately in the public sphere, which has resulted to disprove gendered assumptions that characterize women in the reductive description of their bodies and attributes as inherently passive, apolitical, and peaceful. However, and, consequently, a minimizing of the perceived impact of Senderologist literature places less of an emphasis on the women in such movements.

Santos 101 I mentioned Edith Lagos as a primary example of a ply do not have access to unique narratives from individual woman whose death was used politically by the Shining guerrillas. Path, the government, and the people and the church in The Shining Path’s violent terrorism, and even the state’s Peru. Senderologist gendered characterizations of her response to the terrorism, created a “culture of silence” often contradict the findings of violent-women scholars. I in which the Peruvian people were scared to come for- will use “violent-women scholars” to mean scholars who ward with information for fear of reprisal, which made it specifically study violent women in revolutionary groups, cumbersome for scholars to conduct research on this group. and especially the way gender affects their experiences in Experts consider the Shining Path to be one of the most such environments. Senderologists, alternatively, often violent subversive groups in Peru, and even all of Latin ignore how gender could affect the experience of a female America. While their members did not necessarily use Shining Path cadre, and as a result, their descriptions of torture practices on their victims, they used widespread Sendero women seem to be gender-neutral, as if gender did violence to advance their mission to replace the democratic not influence them. However, I argue that their failure to government with a Maoist dictatorship of the proletariat in acknowledge the influence of gender on the experiences of a longer-term plan to institute state-sponsored communism. women results in defaulting to explanations premised on Their resolve led them to use acts of violence against anyone established gender roles, even when the examples of these or any institution that tried to hinder their objective. For women are very clearly breaking established roles. While example, they bombed private organizations that benefited these women were performing radical violent actions, the from government money, such as the Bayer industrial language that Senderologists use to describe them does not plant that provided electricity to towns all over Peru; they reflect the revolutionary nature of the actions. This paper took over towns, such as Yanaccollpa, Ataccara, Llacchua, will limit its scope to analyzing the representations of fe- Muylacruz, and Lucanamarca, in order to access resources; male guerrillas, more specifically Edith Lagos and Augusta and they assassinated prominent dignitaries, such as María La Torre, in scholarly texts and mass media in order to Elena Moyano and Olegario Curitomay, who encouraged provide examples of how gendered assumptions, masked as resistance against the Shining Path. No one was safe from analysis in scholarship, function to limit the conceptualiza- their violence. The culture of fear—caused by Sendero tion of female guerrillas. Ultimately, such writing ignores violence—in turn created a culture of silence. The Peruvian the anomalous participation of violent female terrorists, and people were scared to speak out against the Shining Path the Senderologists’ framing of the women in the Shin- or in favor of the government for fear of reprisal from the ing Path continues to limit the way that we conceptualize Shining Path; they were also scared to speak out against the women’s agency and capabilities. government and in favor of the Shining Path for fear of the History: A Culture of Silence state militia. People were better off not speaking at all. As a result, most of the information collected about the Shin- any reasons explain why we have very little factual ing Path appeared after the acme of its influence on Peru information about Shining Path women, and why from 1980-1992. Because no one was willing to speak evenM the sources that do exist create only an incomplete during the height of the violence, people’s retrospective ac- composite history of any of their lives. From the Shining counts about the Shining Path were based on memories. Path political standpoint, each cadre’s individual identity Senderologist Literature had to be erased when s/he entered the movement. The group was founded upon Maoist ideals; as such, the com- n order to conduct this project, I will be looking at Sen- munist ideology demanded renunciation of individualism. derologist literature that mentions individual women in The group was working as one entity towards one goal and Ithe Shining Path, mainly Edith Lagos, Augusta La Torre could not be distracted by individual needs or personal and “Betty,”6 and their impact on the movement. First, I struggles. On a more practical note, having an identity will describe the major Senderologists whose work I will ex- and participating in the Shining Path was very dangerous. amine, and then I will introduce the violent-women scholars The state militia was always trying to capture Shining Path whose work I will compare to Senderologists’ works. members, and although knowing names of cadres would While the term “Senderologist”7 appears on a website, I not be helpful in finding comrades who were in hiding, have my own working definition of Senderologist for this guerrillas’ family members were interrogated (and “disap- paper; s/he is someone who is preoccupied with study- 5 Sendero peared”) because of their affiliation with a sub- ing the nuances of the Shining Path, be s/he a scholar or versive. Consequently, aside from insubstantial interviews a journalist. Admittedly, I draw primarily from Sender- with Shining Path members in which former guerrillas Sendero ologists who were journalists at the time that they were recite rehearsed and scripted rhetoric, scholars sim- writing about the Shining Path. Examples include Robin 102 Santos Kirk, an American journalist who wrote a narrative about cally about women in this paper, not because I believe her experiences in Peru from 1983 to the early 1990s, and that women are inherently different from men, but instead Gustavo Gorriti, a Peruvian journalist who wrote about the because “the difference between men and women is habitu- Shining Path in a famous news magazine called Caretas. ally represented, and reinforced as a norm. […] Gender is so Even though Robin Kirk and Gustavo Gorriti are both normal that it goes unexamined.”9 In other words, while it journalists, both of their books, The Monkey’s Paw: New is not something that I believe to be a natural phenomenon, Chronicles from Peru and The Shining Path: A History of people, through scholarship, discourse and lived experi- the Millenarian War in Peru, are cited extensively in other ences, are constantly reinforcing differences between men scholarly works. and women and as a result set up social structures accord- In fact, Mario Fumerton, the only scholarly Senderolo- ing to gender. Furthermore, these structures are set up as gist and Professor at the Center for Conflict Studies at guidelines for the way that individuals assert and identify Utrecht University, whom I cite for this paper, uses both themselves, so while gender may be a useful tool in catego- Kirk and Gorriti as secondary sources for his book From rization, it may also be a limiting tool for individuals who Victims to Heroes: Peasant Counter-Rebellion and Civil War do not fit into that norm (i.e. female political terrorists). in Ayacucho, Peru,1980-2000. Scholars are citing these The fact that these women are breaking the norm may be a journalists, and therefore legitimizing them in their works part of the reason that Senderologists lack the appropriate as academic sources; I, therefore, decided to examine both language to relay their stories accurately. types of writing. The fact that the journalists themselves The Shining Path’s Appeal are establishing themselves as scholars (Kirk now teaches at Duke University) reveals a real conflation of the two n the past 30 years, many Senderologists and violent- fields and justifies an examination of the language that both women scholars who have studied the Shining Path have journalists and scholars, whom I term Senderologists, use Iexplored the question of why particular Peruvian women in their work. joined the movement. Both the fear and mysticism evident Sendero That being said, I also acknowledge that the accounts in accounts of the violent women are symptomatic and information of Senderologists may be biased but of a lack of knowledge about their motivations and reason- not necessarily with an ulterior motive. I do not seek to ing behind their actions and decisions. Cragin and Daly discredit their work because I do believe that their work are able to shed some light as to why people join terrorist and the work of other Peruvian authors and organizations8 movements: put simply, “[they] desire to fight grievances 10 sierra,11 is valuable in piecing together a past that is hard to access. and social influences.” The educated youth of the Instead, I argue that the language they use to describe including young Edith Lagos, were drawn to the Shining women of the Shining Path is assumptive and not always Path’s ideology of revolution. Their intellectual curiosity based on fact, particularly because the “culture of silence” and dissatisfaction with the status quo—Peru’s eroding inevitably limits it. Consequently, Senderologists’ texts re- economy closed opportunity for the advancement of the iterate a series of common assumptions about women, even youth, and the new land reforms further marginalized the when their subjects do not ascribe to those gender roles, as indigenous poor—led them to join a group like the Shin- passive followers, as objectified bodies (sacrificial, virginal ing Path. Not only were they preaching about a cultural and sexualized), and—especially when they break too many change to empower the poor, and especially the disenfran- norms—as crazy agents. chised indigenous people, but they were also mobilizing physical efforts, by using violence to redistribute land or to Using Caroline Moser and Fiona Clark’s book Victims, Perpetrators or Actors? Gender, Armed Conflict and Political hold their own criminal trials, to institute agrarian reform. Violence, Kim Cragin and Sara Daly’s book Women as Terror- Thus, people’s decisions to join the Shining Path were not ists: Mothers, Recruiters, and Martyrs, and Laura Sjoberg and based on their sex but instead on the motivation to enact Women & Guerrilla Caron E. Gentry’s book Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s change. In fact, in her formative work Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba, Violence in Global Politics, I hope to show that there is a wide Karen gap between the language that authors who have studied fe- Kampwirth discusses women’s motivations for joining male terrorists (violent-women scholars) use and the way that guerrilla movements and the special circumstances that Senderologists describe female participation in the Shining allowed women in the 1980s to join revolutionary move- Path. A large part of this article demonstrates the ways that ments. She does not argue that women joined the move- Senderologist diction often limits agency for the women of ment for reasons that are necessarily different from those 12 the Shining Path, representing them as having less initiative of men. Instead she focuses on the social changes that and power than the male members of the group. encouraged or permitted women to join a revolutionary movement. It is important to note that social changes Lastly, I want to be clear that I am speaking specifi- Santos 103 affect both women and men, and most of the time, in very ticipation and created a space for their influence. Sendero’s similar ways; however, once they joined those movements, popular schools taught to women that they had a lot to

men’s experiences were privileged because of their gender. benefit from the Shining Path’s success: once the move- For example, Lagos was inclined to fight the injustices ment gained economic equality for all, then the systems perpetrated by the government, yet the added pressures of oppression that affected women would be eliminated as 15 Senderista that the dynamics of the group probably imposed on her well. Betty, a whom Robin Kirk interviewed political actions have gone largely unnoticed. Senderolo- clandestinely, recounts that during training, she was very gists such as Mario Fumerton and Gustavo Gorriti use quiet and submissive. But the Shining Path chastised her wording about Edith to indicate that her education pro- for not voicing her opinion: “Once she was criticized for 16 Senderistas17 vided her agency, suggesting that knowledge afforded her not speaking up.” The seemed to want all of choices. Community members characterized Edith as a their members to be able to defend their rhetoric, including socially conscious individual who was ready to take action women. Clearly, both their intellect and their loyalty were to equalize opportunity for those less fortunate than she. important to the movement’s success. Her neighbor had this story to illustrate her character: Moreover, one of the most important and memorable Once, in the middle of a hot summer when there tasks that primarily women performed was the “coup de was a water shortage, many families in our neigh- grace” during an assassination, but the intense level of bourhood had no running water for many days due violence that this act required points to a gender-specific to insufficient water pressure in the pipes. Being revolutionary tactic. Tarazona-Sevillano makes three asser- on the ground floor, however, Edith’s house could tive arguments as to why the Shining Path assigned women still receive some water. In spite of this, her mother to the “difficult, dangerous and mentally demanding mis- 18 told everyone in their household not to share their sions” First, this task allowed them to “prove themselves water with the neighbours. Edith didn’t agree, and enhance[d] their self-confidence.” Second, “it serve[d] and so one day after her mother had gone out she to convince them and their colleagues of their capability of invited all the neighbours to come over with empty assuming leadership roles within the movement and within buckets, which she then filled with water from their future state.” Lastly, it “allow[ed] them to strike their tap. When her mother came home and found back violently against the system that restrained them for 19 out what Edith had done, she became so angry. so long.” Tarazano-Sevillano suggests that there was a But Edith didn’t seem to care. She knew that what certain value attached to committing an act of violence, in she did was right.13 that it provided an opportunity for women to prove them- selves as loyal and able, and it furthermore “convinced” the She clearly cared for those less fortunate than she was, but male terrorists that women were capable of certain mascu- whether or not those beliefs would lead her directly into line traits, such as leadership. These acts of violence were the Shining Path is debatable. Here, she is characterized as based on the assumption that women needed to outperform someone who would not simply follow along, but instead as men in order to be considered their equals. Moreover, the someone who would act to rectify an injustice, even if that gender specificity of Tarazano-Sevillano’s third reason meant defying authority. insinuates that the women were acting to fight against the Fumerton implies that Edith, like other young revolu- larger social restraint of women, implying that women only tionaries, had enough knowledge (and agency) to drive her fight for women’s causes. While that may be true in some to take political action that included violence but fails to instances, the politics of the Shining Path did not endorse acknowledge that her fellow comrades would have inevita- disparate politics of individuals and dissenters; they would bly led her to question her motivations directly because she not have been thought of as respected cadres. was a woman. Admittedly, Edith joined the Shining Path Actually, Kirk suggests that women’s inclusion, and the at sixteen; although sixteen may seem like a young age, her rhetoric of their equality to men, is superficial, at best. youth does not necessarily provide a reason to invalidate her Betty’s experience epitomizes the contradiction between agency, as some Senderologists have intimated. Moreover, equality rhetoric and unequal gender practice. Betty ex- because women often face “recrimination by men in the plains the rhetoric of her training: “Men respected women. revolutionary group and their families,” they, unlike Sendero We had the same rights.”20 Kirk’s analysis is quick to men, have to “reconfirm their choice on a daily basis.”14 disagree with Betty’s opinion of the treatment of her gender She had to be determined in order to join a group that may in the movement. She explains that ultimately a male have been constantly questioning her motivations. In other Senderista ruined Betty’s opportunities in the Shining Path: words, not only was she likely an isolated subversive, but “Despite the guerrilla promise of equality, in the end a man her own comrades may have doubted her resolve. was her downfall. He wooed her, beat her, then left her. Ideologically, the Shining Path encouraged female par- 104 Santos It was the old story.”21 Even the phrase “old story” con- body was used by Sendero as a bridge between political notes certain preconceived notions of women’s experiences. families, and her availability as a sexual partner to Guz- Eventually, Betty did have to go into hiding because a male man seemed to be her most valuable attribute. Augusta comrade had impregnated her, and getting pregnant would La Torre’s gendered story can fit very neatly into a mother have been a betrayal to the party. Kirk evinces a sense of narrative; she was acting not only as a determined daugh- disapproval not only towards Senderista practices, but also ter but also as a passionate lover. Therefore, this narrative towards Betty’s self-analysis of her experiences. Again, deploys the role of woman as the sacrificial caretaker, even this is Kirk’s opinion of Betty’s life, an account of a woman if that means putting aside her own needs or life. In such who felt included when she was part of the movement, and narratives, it is specifically a family-tie motivation that re- rightly bitter when she had to leave because of one man. inforces the idea that women should forfeit their bodies for Kirk thus imposes her own beliefs about how gender equal- the benefit of the family and its goals, even by committing ity in the Shining Path should manifest itself. More im- atrocious acts of violence. portantly, she portrays Betty’s experiences as failures, while According to Heilman, “Franco Silva attributed Au- Betty’s language points to a more enfranchised experience. gusta La Torre’s politics to her father, explaining that Ultimately, Kirk privileges her own opinion over Betty’s because Carlos La Torre Cárdenas belonged to the PCP, account of her own experience. ‘his daughter Augusta already had a certain orientation, a Similarly, the narrative about another legendary woman certain disposition, before meeting Guzmán.’”24 Heilman from the Shining Path, Augusta La Torre, the leader of the uses Silva’s quote to make evident that family is influen- Popular Women’s Movement,22 is at times overshadowed by tial when getting involved with the movement. However, writers who privilege her marital relationship to Abimael Silva’s assertion privileges kinship ties as the reason that Guzman over her political achievements. Jaymie Patricia La Torre “met Guzman,” and more importantly joined the Heilman’s brief but impressive analysis on La Torre focuses movement. His comment downplays both her agency and on the influence of family ties on the decision of a Senderi- the independent work that she did for the movement. Silva sta to participate in the movement. Heilman’s argument may not have intended to gender La Torre’s motivations, includes factual and relevant details about the substantive but without an acknowledgment that this reasoning is often kinship relationships amongst La Torre’s family mem- employed for revolutionary women and not men, scholars bers and her husband, Guzmán. Similar to Kampwirth, will continue to write about women as domestic. Heil- Heilman suggests that the influence of family members man does point out that “La Torre’s marriage to Abimael and kinship structures were important motivators to join a Guzmán has led numerous observers to call her revolu- revolutionary movement for both men and women. How- tionary credentials into question.”25 Had Heilman failed ever, the distinction between men and women terrorists to acknowledge that this was a common occurrence, the exists in gendered rhetoric and analysis; Heilman points out comment could have reinforced the idea that women act out how those objective facts about La Torre’s family led many of responsibility to their families and not necessarily out of scholars to question La Torre’s politics. Consequently, their own volition. Additionally, even though La Torre’s scholars’ focus on her domestic life over her public life family connections could have strengthened her reliability genders her narrative primarily as female. as a member of the Shining Path, the focus of scholars and According to Sjoberg and Gentry, gendered narratives family friends on kinship connections questions her agency about violent women are not uncommon. In Mothers, as a woman in the movement. Furthermore, these uncriti- Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics, they cal gendered comments cause Senderologists to overlook outline violent-woman narratives based on established gen- the more important gender-neutral correlation between der tropes—the Mother, the Monster or the Whore—that joining the Shining Path and having family members who interpret violent behavior as a feminine act. La Torre’s mo- were already involved in the Popular Movement; kinship tivations could be questioned, especially if she were labeled was a useful political strategy for both women and men. a “mother” or a “whore.” Sjoberg and Gentry explain that Despite the fact that La Torre’s political actions were be- a mother narrative depicts violent women as “avenging lost ing relegated to a woman’s domestic duty26 to her husband, love and/or a destroyed happy home”23; in other words, they Kampwirth suggests that women had a unique political commit violence only to protect their domestic domain. incentive to join a terrorist revolutionary group. She cites The mother, in the mother narrative, does not necessarily that female participation in guerrilla movements seemed need to have physical children, but instead is emblematic of like political strategy conducive to combat gender-oppres- how women are defined through their sacrificial function in sive government policies.27 Women’s frustration with the their respective kinship systems. Additionally, La Torre’s government’s handling of social problems, more specifi- narrative fits in Sjoberg and Gentry’s whore category; her cally, the disenfranchisement of women, can lead to an Santos 105 increased interest from female participants in revolutionary background, Edith Lagos could relate to people of the sierra. movements. Kampwirth cites Gonzalez: “because the Pompeyo Rivera Terres, a teacher from Ayacucho, affirms: organization itself is revolutionary, challenging tradition, Soon after I had just been transferred to teach at the group is much more likely to challenge the conventional the primary school in Huayao, I remember com- 28 view of women and their historical gender roles.” For ex- ing home one evening and my aunt saying to me, ample, in August 1981, the Shining Path started tribunals “Nephew, this evening we have a meeting at about to punish thieves publicly. Then two months later, they eight o’clock, in the school, because Comandante returned to hold tribunals aimed at people who disrupted Edith Lagos has just arrived.” the family stability; an adulterer and a wife-beater were 29 I was surprised. “A woman guerrilla commander?” publicly castigated. Because women were mostly relegated I asked. to domestic spaces, policing private infractions publicly “Yes!” she replied. “A woman who they say speaks benefited women. splendidly. And they also say she is fighting for the The government, meanwhile, did little to police familial poor!” infractions, and while we will never know if this Shin- So here was my aunt, an uneducated woman who ing Path protocol was instituted by women for women, couldn’t have filled half a sheet of paper with all its existence hints that women, or their presence, affected the writing that she knew, going off to a political the actions of the Shining Path. Therefore, not only were meeting. She really wanted to meet Edith Lagos, women constantly showing and proving their devotion to so she set off at seven o’clock carrying a bowl of the movement, but they were also appropriating the move- toasted maize in one hand, and a pot of barbecued ment for ends that would benefit women and, arguably, beef strips in the other, all for Edith Lagos.31 by extension, men and society. Senderologists arbitrarily describe some women’s motivations as gendered (sacrificial This anecdote points to an instance in which an older female-bodied guerrillas) and at other times ignore the woman, a categorically marginalized person, was willing to more apparent political motivation to combat policies that engage in politics. Her emphasis on Edith’s identity—as a oppress women. Both of these choices seem contradictory “woman guerrilla commander”—suggests that the gender of and arbitrary, but if we acknowledge the influence of gen- the terrorist mattered to her. dered assumptions both from the literature and its sources, Admittedly, Edith’s education did separate her from the we are able to provide an explanation for that phenomenon. rural people of the Peruvian highlands, but serranos were Gender Matters: The Unequal Treatment of nevertheless excited to hear her talk. This was in part because of her ethnicity but also, it would seem, because of Women Under the Pretext of Equality her gender, something that surprisingly does not emerge in Fumerton’s analysis.32 Lagos’s gender made her unique n addition to the aforementioned tribunals, women were in the movement; as Cragin and Daly, authors of Women as able to perform unique tasks, because of their female gen- Terrorists: Mothers, Recruiters, and Martyrs, explain, “The deredI bodies, that men could not execute. In fact, Edith La- notoriety of these women terrorists was derived from their gos’ origins singled her out as a unique asset to the Shining gender more often than not, rather than their strategic Path, which indicates that she had the qualities to lead others thinking, creativity, or even operational prowess.”33 Cragin and recruit people of the highlands. Because she was from a and Daly are not speaking specifically about the Shining family from Ayacucho, she was able to draw sympathy from Path, but instead basing this conclusion on their study of other people in the sierra. Rural and urban Peru have been female terrorists in various revolutionary groups. So I posit historically divided: rural people have systematically been that the previous quote by Fumerton, when contextualized disenfranchised because of social and racial barriers. The by Cragin and Daly’s conclusions, suggests that his ac- central government in Lima made a series of policy changes count fails to acknowledge that it was also her gender that that have affected the rural parts of Peru, with no input from sierra. 30 allowed her to access the people of the Senderolo- the mostly indigenous people of the highlands (serranos). gists who do not focus on gender directly but write about Most serranos speak Quechua (an indigenous language with women, especially women performing masculine acts of no alphabet—it remains primarily oral). They rarely have violence, need to have responsible discussions about the government citizenship papers and receive little to no educa- importance of gender to the way that people relate socially. tion; the disenfranchised serranos, for the most part, do not or Without such a discussion, scholars fail to nuance gender, cannot get involved with Peruvian politics. because they ignore how it influences social structures, and Therefore, when the Shining Path was trying to gain they instead rely on and reify assumptions and prescriptions support from the rural indigenous people of Ayacucho, they about women (and men) when they don’t acknowledge it. needed people who were not from cities; because of her 106 Santos For example, Edith was a symbol of change for the In her article “Guerrilleras in Latin America: Domestic people of Ayacucho, but the change was welcomed because and International Roles,” International Studies scholar she was a woman. So while her ethnicity gained her access Margaret Gonzalez-Perez cites Griset and Mahan, crimi- to people, just as it would for an Ayacuchano (man from nal justice professors and authors of Terrorism in Perspective, Ayacucho), her gender made her even more approachable to who present a typology of women’s participation in guerril- serranos. While her feminine body makes her an oddity in la organizations. Griset and Mahan break down women’s politics and revolution, it also, as mentioned in the previous roles in terrorist groups based on the types of activities that section, invokes ideas of nurture and sacrifice. The aunt in the female guerrillas perform and according to the amount Fumerton’s story is specifically excited to meet a “female” and quality of authority that these women have over the commander, indicating that her excitement was over her group’s actions; the four categories for women are Sympa- gender. Had she said commander, rather than “female thizers, Spies, Warriors, and Dominant Forces.37 “Spies” commander,” we could infer that she was just excited to are women who act as decoys, messengers, and intelligence meet a senderista. Additionally, the aunt is excited that she gatherers. Being a Spy means possession of important, “speaks splendidly,” emphasizing her willingness to hear potentially lethal information, which can indicate a Spy’s Shining Path rhetoric. Lastly, she trusts that she is “fight- worth. Gonzalez-Perez explains that many scholars up to ing” for the poor, framing it as noble. I would argue that the 1980s described women’s roles as secondary or sup- her willingness to listen to Edith is based on her ability to portive.38 While that is changing, I believe that Gorriti’s trust her. Edith was a personable female orator, who could account is complicit in promoting that very belief. Gorriti’s reframe the Shining Path’s violence as a cause to “fight for account fails to explain the sensitivity of this information the poor.” Fumerton recounts the aforementioned story and the fact that female comrades faced a higher threat to only to indicate that Serranos believed that the Shining their safety when they maintained their loyalty. On the one Path “were harmless teenagers,” but they would be proven hand, Senderologists cite gender as the reason for differ- wrong. He cites this as his example of how many differ- ences between male and female terrorists, but on the other ent types of cadres would recruit, but he fails to recognize hand sometimes they fail to mention gender, especially that revolutionary groups strategically use women to draw at moments that would revolutionize essentialist notions recruits. about women and men. These tactics that both mention Not only did Edith Lagos excite Peruvian people, but gender and ignore it seem to be contradictory, but both are she was also a female commander (like other Shining Path in fact reinforcing gender stereotypes. men) who led many elaborate plans for the Shining Path. For example, loyalty from both men and women in the Unlike other Shining Path men, however, her gender would movement was essential and valued, but some critics do prove to be the reason for abuses she suffered. Gustavo state that “women were valued for their “loyalty rather than Gorriti, the Peruvian journalist writing for a Peruvian their intellect.”39 The need to make the two concepts—loy- newsweekly, Caretas, during the height of the attacks by alty and intellect—mutually exclusive reveals that there are the Shining Path, relates a brief but descriptive account of distorted underlying assumptions here. Loyalty does not Edith’s 1980 capture.34 She had been charged with using necessarily mean the lack of intelligence, but rather it can dynamite to blow up an Ayacucho municipal building and be a valued necessity in the movement. The separation of the home of an Election Board president. However, instead the terms overlooks in particular the power of knowledge of being taken to jail, the military forces sent her to Lima, and information clearly evident in Edith’s participation. which indicates that “her importance went far beyond When women were captured, they could have easily sur- her role as a leader.”35 The militia not only considered her rendered Sendero’s sensitive information, including names, responsible for the attacks but targeted her to be questioned places and actions that had or were going to take place, for further information. During this time, suspected ter- which would have severely threatened the success of the rorists were violently interrogated, but because she was a movement. Therefore, two negative consequences arise: woman she would also be subject to sexual violence in the first, in scholar’s representations loyal women are stripped custody of the Peruvian state. Moser and Clark explain: of intellect, and second, the sacrifices that they made to “Gender consciousness [invites us] to see how men and maintain their loyalty are undermined. women are positioned differently, have different experi- When Edith Lagos was sent to Lima, she was in a 36 ences, different needs [and strengths].” Gorriti’s narrative precarious position, not only because the government is biased and gendered because it makes no attempt to con- considered her a terrorist, but especially because she was textualize her experience, failing to relay that her loyalty a female comrade. Edith Lagos had information that the and worth for the movement came at an added price for her, police wanted, and it was popular knowledge that they and for female cadres. would use various interrogation tactics, including rape, in Santos 107 order to extract it. Meanwhile, the Shining Path, accord- also he belittles their importance as agents and as subjects ing to Maoist ideals, treated (and punished) their men and by accentuating their oppressed identities. Guzmán had in- their women equally when members of the group broke the timate relationships with both women, so Durand’s dismis- rules. Yet equality in the movement came at an unfair price sive language is linked to perceptions that the general public for women when they were asked to defend the Shining has about women in relationships with men of power. And Path in other contexts where differences in gender dictated this is evinced by Durand’s consequent comment: “Guzmán what types of torture would be used. Even though treach- fantasized about being alone, surrounded by women in the 42 ery against the party was very serious and was not tolerated Political Bureau.” The use of the word “fantasized” con- from anyone in the movement, women endured the added notes a sexual tone with regards to the women as objects. threat of sexual violence from the police and military in or- Whether or not this was true about Guzmán, Durand’s der to remain loyal. Robin Kirk, who reported in Peru dur- comment had no bearing on the women or their political ing the beginning and peak of the Shining Path’s violence, worth, and for that matter exposes more about Guzmán’s adds that to the group “the fact that [women] had been preferences than about what roles the women filled in the tortured and raped by the police was immaterial,” and they movement. Heilman responsibly highlights the power were consequently punished for giving information to the dynamic—woman subservient to man—that scholars often police.40 Like men, the women had to write self-criticisms associate with marriage, which is useful to indicate the and attend criticism sessions. They were also beaten and different ways in which comrades and scholars have tried to had their heads shaved. Women had to be wary not only of undermine La Torre’s authority. punishment by the Shining Path (which was not dictated Heilman is cautious about making assumptions concern- by the gender of the person who was receiving the punish- ing the women solely based on the known relationships with ment), but also of the gendered abuses of the police. the people closest to them. She describes the correlation The literature clearly explains the gender-equality policies between Augusta’s political family and her politics using phrases such as: “We cannot say for certain,” and “we can- of the Shining Path but makes no effort to verify whether 43 or not such ideals were practiced in everyday life. There is not make decisive statements.” In other words, the fact that a lack of nuance when Senderologists write about situations La Torre’s family was heavily politically involved with the affected by gender. Lagos proved her loyalty as she repeated PCP-SL does not provide information about the causality of the words that all comrades are forced to repeat when they her motivations to join the movement. Senderologists could were captured: “I am innocent and have nothing to do only make an academic claim about the influence of fam- with the accusations the police have made…everything ily using the study by Lewis Taylor, which Heilman cites, they accuse me of is false…in a society where human rights showing that Augusta La Torre’s siblings were all involved are respected, freedom is a right and it is a duty to defend with the Shining Path to some extent. In fact, Heilman it.”41 However, those same words probably spoken by male prefaces her entire study with a note about the focus of familial relations as being able to “overshadow the political comrades as well did not signify the same “duty.” With 44 some legal help, Lagos was allowed to go back to Ayacucho, ideas, efforts and legacy of a given militant.” where she continued to be a loyal member and force for the Heilman does not seem to have included in her article Shining Path. However, the sacrifices that she made in previously undiscovered information about Augusta La Lima remained unrecognized by Gorriti. Torre, but she does contextualize the narrative that she In fact, Senderologists cast women in subservient roles in chooses to include about La Torre. Her article admits the the movement despite their obvious contributions to and ac- limitations and preconceived notions that influence the nar- complishments in the movement. However, even with gaps rative that she relays about Augusta. In the end, she cites in the history, scholars can responsibly account for such bi- another example when other comrades spoke of La Torre’s ases. In the following example, Heilman includes gendered great contribution to the movement. Guzman described her comments that another comrade makes about Augusta La as “the greatest heroine of the party and the Revolution,” Torre, but also contextualizes those comments, and speaks and another militant said she was the “shining example of giving her life to the Party, the Revolution and commu- to their level of validity. Heilman explains that the mere 45 fact that La Torre was married to the most important man nism.” Heilman’s article is a great example of a responsible in the revolution meant that she would constantly be judged portrayal of a Shining Path woman because she is question- as his partner; this means that her life was subject to public ing her sources and providing context when she cites them. scrutiny. For example, Ramirez Durand, the comrade Edith: The Body of Sacrifice directly lower in rank than both La Torre and Elena Iparra- guirre (another female comrade in the Central Committee), nlike Augusta’s well-documented participation and described them as Guzmán’s ‘mujercitas’ (little women). Not family history, Edith’s history is less well substantiat- only does he reinforce Guzman’s ownership of them, but Ued, which leaves to scholars the task of recreating her story. 108 Santos The mystery and questions primarily surround the day of women destabilize gendered assumptions. Lagos’s story is her death. Gorriti narrates the story:46 the Republican a prime opportunity to show how people, both scholars and Guards (the state police) were driving around in civilian the people who retell the narratives about Senderistas, will clothing when they were stopped by a man and a woman reframe the story of a violent terrorist into that of a mar- who were armed. According to a priest who spoke to tyred and/or sacrificed body of a dead female comrade. journalist Nicholas Shakespeare, the man was Lagos’s lover, For example, during Edith Lagos’s career in the Shining and he was trying to teach her how to drive; so they had Path, she was known for her impassioned speeches and her 47 decided to steal a truck. The state police just happened to well-organized prison breaks, but Senderologists, such as be driving by, and as soon as they saw that Edith and her Gorriti and Kirk, focus primarily on analyzing her body. lover were armed, the police started shooting at them. Her In the aforementioned example, Gorriti describes Lagos’s lover took cover and survived, while Edith “dropped” to physical demeanor as an indicator for the type of person 48 the ground. The guards did not stick around to find out that she was. In another instance, when Lagos was later whether she was alive or not. Her body was apparently not jailed, Kirk also mentions her physical state: “In a mug shot retrieved until hours later (in other versions, the next day) in 1981, her nose and cheeks were swollen from a beating. from a hut nearby. No one knows exactly how her body Gone was the curiosity from her eyes…Here I am, they ended up in the hut or even precisely when she died. seemed to say, with my mind made up.”53 Both accounts The writing of history is a careful balance between focus on her determination, on her body, meaning that this incomplete memory and unforgettable events that often analysis emerges from her body and her gestures, not her times reinforce societal and cultural beliefs. At the point actual character traits. I take less issue with the descrip- that “reality does not coincide with deeply held beliefs, tion of her body than the assumptions that are extracted human beings tend to phrase interpretations that force from them. Both Gorriti and Kirk make statements about reality within the scope of these beliefs.”49 So not only do the type of person she is based on her body, instead of on “historians” choose the stories that readers are accepting as the impressive actions that she carried out. Even though an official story of past events, but these historians are also “[Edith] is credited with playing a major role in a spec- part of the biased histories that exist, and they are subject tacular assault on Ayacucho prison in March 1982, freeing to the same internalized, socially-constructed notions of nearly 300 prisoners, [and] Lagos herself, escaped prison gender. Trouillot points out that “historical narratives are five times before being killed in captivity that same year, at premised on previous understandings, which are themselves the age of 19,” scholars place less emphasis on such facts.54 premised on the distribution of archival power.”50 When Her actions do not get the same analytic detail as do her scholars reproduce a story without context, the story is then physical traits. I am not suggesting that either scholar contextualized by assumptions and commonly held beliefs wrote about her with this particular focus because s/he of the readers. Thus, “the absence of gender in analyses of had an ulterior motive, but instead I want to illustrate that political events and relations cannot be read simply as blind the analysis and focus on women’s bodies is very ingrained omission, but as (intentional or unintentional) bias.”51 So in Senderologist epistemology. Moreover, such a focus not only do authors make assumptions, most of the time inevitably alters the historical legacy of terrorist women as subconsciously, but their failure to identify their own biases thinking actors—instead making them just bodies. There- also promulgates more normalized (unspoken) cultural as- fore such scholars are doing an injustice to their investiga- sumptions about gender, such as gendering a woman with tion if their sources are limited to bodies as evidence. female traits like passive and emotional. Edith embodied both the desperation and hope of the Therefore, because violent women do not fit into the mold youth who sacrificed to live in a better society. Although of female gender stereotypes, scholars and the general pub- she had been a fierce murderer, her 19 years of age were a lic create narratives that explain women’s actions within the reminder that young people—the theoretically untainted familiar gendered framework. Sjoberg and Gentry explicit- youth—mobilized this movement. Gorriti explains that even ly state that narratives about violent women create and rein- before her death, in Ayacucho, there were clay figurines of a force biological, psychological, and sexualized assumptions female guerrilla in uniform standing next to a budding tree, in what they call the Mother, Monster or Whore narratives, almost like “an Andean Diana, Huntress, glazed with the respectively. Additionally, more central to their argument ambiguity of fertility and war.”55 While Diana herself was is the idea that all the narratives “share the dual move of virginal, she looked after other virgins and women to ensure denying women’s agency in their violence and condemning the preservation of kings and mankind. She was a sacrificial women’s femininity.”52 They explain away violent women in symbol in that she herself did not have children, but her re- accordance to the established notions about women, instead sponsibility was to ensure the well being of posterity. In this of focusing on the more fundamental question of how these incarnation, her body was no longer that of a violent woman Santos 109 because that does not fit into the gender paradigms; instead, Conclusion she became a martyred symbol of fertility, all attributes that e cannot assume that gender assumptions always comfortably belong to a woman. work against the conceptualization of a woman as Kirk places an emphasis on how Sendero used Edith aW powerful agent, but we can see that they limit the way Lagos’s body as a symbol for sacrifice: “Edith became the that we talk about women. This is especially true when Shining Path’s rallying cry, their martyr. They needed we discuss women in extreme situations, such as women one.”56 It did not matter how many comrades had died who were part of a terrorist group. Furthermore, the before or after her; she was nineteen and beautiful, and that incessant practice of reading women’s bodies in terms of is why her death was indispensable. For his part Gorriti conventional scripts or ideas limits our assessment of their argues that Lagos, unlike Abimael Guzman, the old male agency in historical interpretations. If Senderologists and leader of the Shining Path, symbolized purity of devotion other scholars, who do not have access to sources in which to the cause because of her youth. She had done something women speak for themselves about themselves, continue that the deaths of many other male cadres were not able to to relegate common gendered traits to them, then scholars do; she created sympathy for the movement. perpetuate common stereotypes about women, including Edith’s “sacrificed” body thus symbolized various politi- these in the Shining Path. We, the future scholars, as a cal objectives for different people. Her casket was covered result, may not be able to think of women and their char- with the symbol of the Shining Path, so their presence in acter traits as different from prescriptive stereotypes, even the funeral was apparent. However, a fiercely anti-com- when scholars examine women who so clearly defy gender munist priest presided over her funeral, and the majority roles. We, then, take away the ability for a woman who of the people were not Shining Path supporters: “It would does not want to subscribe to gender roles to step out of certainly be grossly misleading to say that most of those them. Women constantly make choices about who they are who took part in the procession that day were Shining Path and how they represent themselves because gender serves to supporters. Rather, the vast majority of mourners had come structure relations, especially when signifying power onto simply to bury one of their own, an Huamanguina who, in a person. But if scholars constantly confine women to de- spite of how the control mechanisms of the Party had even- fined gendered spaces, then there is no room for freedom of tually transformed her, continued in their hearts to symbol- 57 expression beyond these prescribed limits. This limitation ize their own collective desire for enduring social justice.” Her dead body was the unifying object of peace for every- is detrimental not only to the story of women from the past one in the procession. In fact, in the novel Finding Cholita, but also to women of the future who are continually con- author and anthropologist Billie Jean Isbell notes that “clay tributing to the diversity of what it means to be a woman. figurines of Edith Lagos wearing a Maoist uniform and posed as the Madonna were sold in local markets.”58 She and her story became a myth that humanized the Shining Path’s cause. The clay figures were no longer of an un- 1 Ayacucho is the capital city of the Huamanga Province in Peru’s highlands where the Shining Path is said to have named woman next to a tree, as Gorriti previously men- started. tioned, but now had a name and an identity, even if those 2 Sometimes referred to as Sendero or SL. had only symbolic and not factual relevance. Only because 3 A term used to describe anyone that was preoccupied with she was a young, attractive female was she able to embody studying the nuances of the Shining Path, be they scholars or the seemingly pure motives of the Shining Path. So not journalists. only did Senderologists ascribe traits to Edith; serranos were 4 See Linda Reif, “Women in Latin American Guerrilla also mobilizing to make her a positive figure, rather than Movements: A Comparative Perspective,” Comparative focusing on her political terrorism. Politics 18, no. 2 (January 1986); Caroline O. N. Moser and Victims, Perpetrators or Actors? Gender, While Gorriti does admit that Edith Lagos’s gender (and Fiona C. Clark, eds., Armed Conflict and Political Violence (New York: Zed Books, age) changed the way that the general public interpreted 2001); Karen Kampwirth, Women & Guerrilla Movements: her death, he fails to point out explicitly how her death was Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba (University Park, gendered, and as a result, he denies her agency as a guer- PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002); and Paige Whaley Eager, From Freedom Fighters to Terrorists: Women rilla. The failure to do so and the ways that ideas and poli- and Political Violence tics of sacrifice were imposed on her body work negatively (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008). twofold. First, if the reader does not question Gorriti’s 5 A term used in Latinamericanist scholarship for people who went missing as a result of civil violence. Often, the state interpretation, then the reader’s implicit assumptions that would suspend civil rights under the pretext that it was trying lead him/her to agree with his conclusion are quietly reaf- to capture subversives in order to protect civilians. However, firmed, and second, Gorriti’s unquestioned logic remains this gave the state access and power over people. unchecked and therefore validated. 6 Betty was a former Sendero member who met Robin Kirk 110 Santos for an interview in an unidentified place. Kirk names her 32 It is important to note that race plays a very important role “Betty” because she is in hiding; she still fears the conse- in the way that people are perceived in Peruvian society. quences of her desertion from the Shining Path. Indigenous people (indigenos) are usually of a lower class and 7 “Senderologist” is a term that I found on a website (http:// disenfranchised. Mestizos (people who are a mix between in- www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/) that describes itself as “an ar- digenous and Spanish, racially white) are associated with the chive of historical files uploaded by the Communist Party of city and as a result with wealth. These distinctions are in no Peru (PCP) in the 1990s.” NY Transfer, a web page for “All way defined, and there are many other cultural markers that the News That Doesn’t Fit,” owns the site and claims to keep would indicate how someone would be categorized. Edith it for “historical and political purposes only” despite the fact was not indigenous, in that she was educated and came from a that it has not been updated since November 1998 and that it middle-class family, but she was from Ayacucho, a town that is not in contact with the site’s creators anymore. is primarily populated by an indigenous population. Women as Terrorists 8 The Truth and Reconciliation Committee. 33 Cragin and Daly, , 85. 9 Cynthia Cockburn, “The Gendered Dynamics of Armed 34 The story that Gustavo Gorriti acquired during an interview Conflict and Political Violence,” in Victims, Perpetrators or Ac- with the Interior Minister of Peru at the time, José Gagliardi tors? Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence, ed. Caroline Schiaffino, who first identified Lagos’s body during an unre- O. N. Moser and Fiona C. Clark. (New York: Zed Books, lated trip to Andahuaylas (a town close to Ayacucho). 2001), 14. 35 Gustavo Gorriti, The Shining Path: A History of the Mil- lenarian War in Peru 10 Kim Cragin and Sara A. Daly, Women as Terrorists: Mothers, , trans. Robin Kirk (Chapel Hill, NC: Recruiters, and Martyrs (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 80. International, 2009), 15. 36 Ibid., 28. 11 Spanish word for highlands. 37 Margaret Gonzalez-Perez, “Guerrilleras in Latin America: Journal of Peace Research 12 Kampwirth, Women & Guerrilla Movements, 123. Domestic and International Roles,” 43, no. 3 (May 2006): 316. 13 Mario Fumerton, From Victims to Heroes: Peasant Counter- Rebellion and Civil War in Ayacucho, Peru, 1980-2000 (Am- 38 Ibid. sterdam: Rozenberg Publishing, 2002), 9. 39 Ibid., 321. 14 Cockburn, “Gendered Dynamics,” 15. 40 Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw, 87. 15 David Scott Palmer, ed., The Shining Path of Peru (New York: 41 Gorriti, The Shining Path, 80. St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 199. 42 Heilman, “Family Ties,” 165. The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru 16 Robin Kirk, 43 Ibid., 161. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997): 69. 44 Ibid., 157. 17 A Shining Path member in Spanish is known as a Senderi- sta. The word, unlike most Spanish words, does not specify 45 Ibid., 164. whether it is referring to a male or female gendered person. 46 A story that Gorriti acquired during an interview with the 18 Palmer, The Shining Path of Peru, 199. Interior Minister of Peru at the time, José Gagliardi Schiaf- fino, who first identified Lagos’s body during an unrelated 19 Ibid. trip to Andahuaylas (a city in the Southern Sierra of Peru 20 Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw, 85. about 10 hours away from Ayacucho). 21 Ibid., 108. 47 Gorriti, The Shining Path, 241. 22 This was a faction of the Shining Path. 48 Ibid., 241-242. 23 Laura Sjoberg and Caron E. Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, 49 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics (New York: Zed Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), 72. Books, 2007), 32. 50 Ibid., 55. 24 Jayme Patricia Heilman, “Family Ties: The Political Geneal- 51 Sjoberg and Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores, 175. ogy of Shining Path’s Comrade Norah,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 29, no.2 (April 2010), 161. 52 Ibid., 30. The Monkey’s Paw 25 Ibid., 157. 53 Kirk, , 80. Women and War in the Twen- 26 This is not to suggest that domestic duty is in any way 54 Nicole Ann Dombrowski, ed., tieth Century: Enlisted with or without Consent inferior to a political life but instead to highlight how, even (New York: when there are political motivations, Senderologists will still Garland Publishing, 1999), 273. employ gendered attributes that happen to deny agency to 55 Gorriti, The Shining Path, 241. violent women. 56 Kirk, The Monkey’s Paw, 83. 27 Kampwirth, Women & Guerrilla Movements, 127. 57 Fumerton, From Victims to Heroes, 34. 28 Ibid., 315. 58 Billie Jean Isbell, Finding Cholita (Urbana: University of 29 Palmer, The Shining Path of Peru, 84. Illinois Press, 2009), 76. It is important to note that Finding Cholita is unlike the other works that I have been examining. 30 People from the sierra (highlands). It is a fictional ethnography set in Ayacucho, Peru. The an- 31 Fumerton, From Victims to Heroes, 45. thropologist is trying to find Cholita, a Shining Path member Santos 111 who may have killed her father, her mother’s rapist. Conse- Press, c1996. quently, the anthropologist actively looks for stories about Mothers, Monsters, Whores: women who were raped by Peru’s militia. This fictional story Sjoberg, Laura, and Caron E. Gentry. is not necessarily historically true, but I cite the novel be- Women’s Violence in Global Politics. New York: Zed Books, cause the mention of these figurines in a novel points to how 2007. pervasive the legend of the female guerrilla is for different Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Produc- media about Peru. tion of History. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1997. Bibliography

Cockburn, Cynthia. “The Gendered Dynamics of Armed Con- flict and Political Violence.” In Victim’s Perpetrators or Actors? Gendered Armed Conflict and Political Violence, edited by Caroline O.N. Moser and Fiona C. Clark, 13-29. New York: Zed Books, 2001. Cragin, Kim, and Sara A. Daly. Women as Terrorists: Mothers, Recruiters, and Martyrs. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2009. Dombrowski, Nicole Ann, ed. Women and War in the Twentieth Century: Enlisted with or without Consent. New York: Garland Publishing, 1999. Eager, Paige Whaley. From Freedom Fighters to Terrorists: Women and Political Violence. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008. Fumerton, Mario. From Victims to Heroes: Peasant Counter-Rebel- lion and Civil War in Ayacucho, Peru, 1980-2000. PhD diss., Utrect University, 2002. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishing, 2002. Georges-Abeyie, Daniel E. “Women as Terrorists.” In Perspectives on Terrorism, edited by Lawrence Zelic Freedman and Yonah Alexander. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1983. Gonzalez-Perez, Margaret. ‘‘Guerrilleras in Latin America: Domestic and International Roles.’’ Journal of Peace Research 43, no. 3 (May 2006): 313–29. Gorriti, Gustavo. The Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru. Translated by Robin Kirk. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. Griset, Pamala L., and Sue Mahan. Terrorism in Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2003. Heilman, Jaymie Patricia. “Family Ties: The Political Genealogy of Shining Path’s Comrade Norah.” Bulletin of Latin Ameri- can Research 29, no. 2 (April 2010): 155-169. Isbell, Billie Jean. Finding Cholita. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Kampwirth, Karen. Women & Guerrilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Kirk, Robin. The Monkey’s Paw: New Chronicles from Peru. Am- herst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. Moser, Caroline O. N., and Fiona C. Clark, eds. Victims, Perpe- trators or Actors? Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence. New York: Zed Books, 2001. Palmer, David Scott, ed. The Shining Path of Peru. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Reif, Linda L. “Women in Latin American Guerrilla Move- ments: A Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Politics 18, no. 2, (January, 1986): 147-169. Rodriguez, Ileana. Women, Guerrillas, and Love: Understanding War in Central America. Translated by Ileana Rodriguez with Robert Carr. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 112 Santos Jim Crow’s Middle Class: An Examination of the Socioeconomic Impacts of Devolution on Colorblind Legislation

Monica Smith

Abstract: This study proposes that state-level implementation of the GI Bill of 1944, as mandated by devolution, permitted local agencies and bureaucratic figures to undermine the provisions of the bill. To examine one of the least studied but more consequential elements of the bill, that is, access to higher education, a statistical analysis of black veteran representation in higher education is conducted to assess whether significant state-level differences exist. Such an analysis supports V.O. Key’s black-belt hypothesis regarding the ways a white minority reacts to a large black population. This study demonstrates that devolution of the GI Bill of 1944 contributed to differential distribution of military benefits based on race and suggests that devolution may be instrumental in the propagation of discriminatory practices in the U.S.

Introduction as expressed in legislation, and a state’s power to undermine those intentions. Moreover, it suggests that the federal We view [the GI Bill of 1944] as a true economy, government’s practice of devolution may ultimately act as an the best money that can be spent for the future obstacle to the economic mobility meant to result from such welfare of the nation. The men and women who social welfare programs. compose our armed forces . . . not only now hold the destiny of this Republic firmly in their hands, A closer examination of the mechanisms of the GI Bill of they will so hold it for a generation to come.1 1944 will reveal how a single item of colorblind legislation produced drastically different results for veterans based on pon the end of World War II, Congress enacted the their race. Determining how these results came about will Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944, hereafter provide greater insight into the history of Southern politics Ureferred to as the GI Bill of 1944, in an effort to assimi- and the consequences of devolution, the practice of empower- late America’s World War II veterans into civilian society ing non-federal entities to implement federal legislation that without endangering the fragile economy. The primary 6 is based on the premise that “locals know best.” Exploring elements of the GI Bill attempted to defer veterans from the the devolution of the GI Bill of 1944 will demonstrate how existing labor force by encouraging them to instead attend colorblind legislation might produce race-based outcomes college or vocational school, acquire a new trade, or invest in while contributing to a more textured understanding of pres- an agricultural or business enterprise. These unprecedented ent discrepancies in the net worth of black families and their military benefits provided a unique opportunity for veterans white counterparts. to achieve socioeconomic mobility, resulting in the bill’s legacy as “the best investment the U.S. government ever Purpose made.”2 Moreover, the GI Bill of 1944 challenged prevailing social norms by allowing all veterans, regardless of their race, his study examines the relationship between federal to reap its benefits, earning it the title of America’s first piece and state-level governments in the distribution of social of colorblind legislation.3 welfareT programs. The language of the GI Bill mandated “the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs is authorized to admin- Despite the GI Bill’s reputation as “the great democra- ister this title and shall, insofar as possible, utilize existing tizer,” it is unclear that those charged with implementing facilities and services of Federal and State departments the bill’s provisions abided by its mandate of equal access to or agencies on the basis of mutual agreements with such all veterans, regardless of race.4 Indeed, scholars argue that departments or agencies.” Furthermore, it “empowered the the framers of the bill intentionally delegated implementa- Administrator to delegate to any officer or employee of his tion to the state level, so as to appease regional interests that own or of any cooperating department or agency of any State favored the subordination of nonwhites.5 The possibility that such of his powers and duties, except that of prescribing rules the GI Bill of 1944 may have been constructed in such a way and regulations, as the Administrator may consider necessary as to permit discrimination against an entire demographic 7 and proper to carry out the purposes of this title.” These two brings to light a political conflict between federal intentions, clauses of the GI Bill represent devolution of the distribution Smith 113 of benefits, wherein the responsibility to administer federal Compression,’ because the disparity in earning power be- legislation is shifted to a lower level of government. Indeed, tween blue- and white-collar workers grew smaller across so- each of the primary elements of the bill, including provisions ciety as a whole for the first time in history. Economic classes for education, home or business loans, and occupational assis- in America literally compressed as never before.”8 More tance, was subject to such devolution clauses that essentially importantly, “the postwar era was characterized, however, by empowered state governments and local agencies to adminis- wage compression, which elevated the earnings and benefits ter the military benefits. of those without college degrees and depressed the wages of 9 The devolution of the provisions of the GI Bill of 1944 the more highly educated individuals.” Thus, for the years di- necessarily created a tension between the seemingly race- rectly after the end of World War II, the type of job one held neutral language of the federal legislation and the race-based did not necessarily limit one’s potential for social mobility. interests that dominated state-level politics in the 1940s. The skilled and semiskilled industries that blossomed This study investigates the relationship between the federal during and immediately after the war, including the tele- government and the local- and state-level agencies charged phone, automotive, and television industries, boasted an with carrying out federal legislation. An examination of the abundance of well-paid occupations that did not require a GI Bill of 1944 within the context of the postwar era will college degree. For black World War II veterans, this situa- demonstrate how a local agency or state government might tion seemed to promise economic mobility, particularly for undermine the spirit of federal legislation by prioritizing the those who received technical training while serving in the maintenance of local regimes of power over equal access to military.10 By and large, the military required soldiers to be government programs. technically trained. As such, southern black servicemen were This study proposes that the state-level implementation of equipped to fill a number of skilled positions, including auto the GI Bill of 1944, as mandated by devolution, permitted mechanics, radio operators, and welders, upon their return 11 local agencies and bureaucratic figures to undermine the pro- to the States. Veterans that acquired occupational skills via visions of the bill, resulting in unequal access to benefits for military training could utilize those same skills after the war African-American veterans. Furthermore, individuals who in industries that paid more than other unskilled positions, were dedicated to the maintenance and control of the black which would have significantly improved their economic population compounded these discriminatory practices. In standing. The training black veterans received in the military other words, this study demonstrates that the maintenance of might have qualified them to secure employment that would regional interests, namely the promulgation of extant racial improve their economic status upon the termination of the hierarchies, prevented the GI Bill of 1944 from truly living war. To procure employment under the terms of the GI Bill up to its colorblind nature. of 1944, veterans were to work with state level agencies cre- To provide a clearer understanding of the role of regional ated by the federal government. interests in the implementation of this legislation, this study The Veterans Administration and the United first reviews the major elements of the GI Bill of 1944 in the context of the Southern political system, focusing on States Employment Service how these implementation practices served as obstacles wo federal agencies, the Veterans Administration (VA) to African-American veterans. Next, it provides a more or the United States Employment Service (USES), were detailed analysis of arguably the most valuable element of chargedT with assisting veterans in locating jobs that would the GI Bill—the provision for subsidized college education. appropriately utilize their occupational skills. Although A statistical analysis will then reveal the qualities of certain the VA and USES were federal bodies, local branches had states that correlate with a higher support for black veteran the responsibility of administering the GI Bill’s provisions. education. Finally, this study concludes with a case study of Unfortunately for black veterans, neither the federal fund- the state of Georgia that will provide a compelling example ing of these two agencies nor the “colorblind” nature of the of how regional political bodies used devolution clauses as GI Bill itself could override the pervasive racial prejudice an opportunity to maintain racial hierarchies in the face of that characterized many of these local branches throughout colorblind federal legislation. the South.12 One way that these local agencies denied black African-Americans and the GI Bill veterans access to their benefits was by refusing to hire many black counselors. Onkst notes, “By 1947, for example, the eterans’ experiences with World War II prepared them VA had employed a total of approximately a dozen African- to take advantage of opportunities presented by the American counselors in Georgia and Alabama, and not one Valtered economic landscape of the United States. The combi- in Mississippi…From 1944 through 1946, the [USES] only nation of the development of new industries and the need for employed approximately fifteen black counselors in Geor- intense wartime production manifested itself in an environ- gia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and all of those counselors, ment that was ripe for economic improvement. In fact, “[e] except one, worked in Georgia.”13 Because the VA was conomists sometimes refer to the post-war era as ‘the Great staffed almost entirely by white counselors, it became known 114 Smith as an enemy of sorts to black veterans.14 A lack of black that many black veterans had the skills necessary to secure counselors meant that black veterans were at the mercy of a employment in professional and skilled occupations. predominantly white staff that gradually developed a series of practices that undermined the provisions of the GI Bill while Apprenticeships preventing black veterans from obtaining their benefits. or those veterans who did not receive technical training For instance, the GI Bill mandated that all veterans except during their military service, the GI Bill provided access those who had received a dishonorable discharge should Fto occupational skills training through apprenticeships and receive the benefits it outlined. However, as Onkst describes, on-the-job training programs. When participating in such a “white counselors often refused to help black veterans who program, a veteran would receive regular wages from his em- had received a ‘general’ or ‘blue’ discharge (as it was com- ployer, hands-on training for a particular trade, and a monthly monly known), which the Army had issued disproportionate- living stipend. Taken together, these benefits would provide ly to black ‘troublemakers.’”15 While these ‘general’ or ‘blue’ a veteran with the assistance needed to earn a living while discharges were not the same as a dishonorable discharge, acquiring occupational skills that could enable him to secure a they did signify some sort of demerit while in service. Black higher paying position in the future. To receive these benefits, veterans were often given these discharges if they did not a veteran could either search for a program through the Veter- comply with segregationist policies. In this way, white coun- ans Administration, or he could locate an employer willing to selors exploited the discriminatory tactics of the Army to train him and have that apprenticeship opportunity approved deny black veterans their military benefits. Moreover, these by a state-level Veterans Administration coordinator. particular methods of discrimination were facilitated by pow- Both of these options presented significant obstacles for erful local agencies that were not held accountable concern- black veterans, primarily because predominantly white VA ing their adherence to the provisions of the GI Bill. staff members had the opportunity to cling to their racist A slightly more intricate strategy used by white counselors ideology when assisting black veterans in locating apprentice- to deny black veterans their benefits concerned job placement ship programs. Black veterans in the South who attempted to and unemployment compensation. Under the provisions of locate on-the-job training programs without the assistance of the GI Bill, veterans could receive unemployment compensa- the Veterans Administration faced little success. More often tion of twenty dollars per week for up to a full year, so long than not, white businesses were unwilling to hire and train as they did not hold a job that paid more than twenty-three blacks. Investigations by the SRC clearly indicated the wide- dollars per week. To receive these benefits, a veteran had to spread lack of apprenticeship programs for black veterans: actively pursue employment through either the VA or USES. In Atlanta, during March 1946, the American A veteran would not qualify for this additional compensation Council on Race Relations found black veter- if he or she refused to take a job deemed “suitable” for him ans participating in just six of the 246 on-the- or her by the agency through which he was seeking employ- job training programs that the state of Georgia ment. In other words, local agencies, staffed predominantly had approved for veterans…an SRC field agent by white counselors, had the power to determine what types calculated that only one out of every ten black 16 of jobs were “suitable” for black veterans. In general, white Alabama veterans interested in obtaining instruc- counselors in the South refused to suggest skilled or semi- tion could find a program in which to enroll… the skilled positions to black veterans, and instead required them SRC estimated that southern black veterans, who to take menial labor positions that required long hours and collectively represented approximately one-third of afforded very little pay. A survey conducted by the VA in the South’s World War Two veteran population, 1946 indicated that, “86 percent of the skilled, professional, could only enter one out of every twelve on-the-job and semiskilled jobs went to white veterans, while 92 percent training programs within the region.18 of the nonskilled and service positions went to black vets.”17 That is, whites filled the majority of skilled positions avail- Essentially, these surveys demonstrate that apprenticeship able while blacks filled the majority of unskilled positions. options for black veterans seeking on-the-job training were Black veterans offered unskilled or menial positions found quite limited. themselves in a difficult predicament: if they decided to -ac Unfortunately, the black veterans who were able to enter cept such an offer, they would waste their occupational skills into apprenticeship programs reported abuse and exploita- in a job that did not provide them with enough income to tion. Employers approved as teachers would often train their support themselves and their family. However, if they de- employees for the purpose of using them as cheap labor, clined such an offer, they were denied federal unemployment charge veterans to enter training programs, provide inad- compensation, possibly resulting in a lower income than if equate training, and require their apprentices to work long 19 they had accepted the job offer. Thus, in order to receive their hours with very few breaks. Thus, many business owners unemployment compensation, many black veterans had to ac- took advantage of black veterans by exploiting their labor cept jobs that were unskilled and low-paying, despite the fact and not providing adequate training in return, violating

Smith 115 the guidelines of the GI Bill. Moreover, black veterans that was already offering such instruction.22 complained about the conditions in which they worked were In addition, many of these vocational schools that instructed usually stripped of their GI benefits by local agencies who black veterans lacked the proper structural elements necessary considered them unwilling to accept “suitable” employment. to a learning environment. When visiting the Ward Street The federal government, particularly the national Veterans School, a small vocational school located in Georgia, Bohan- Administration, failed to notice any of these abuses, largely non found, “an old dilapidated building with virtually no doors because oversight of such programs had been delegated to or windows, a very poor heating system and most despairing state-level departments of education. Many states did not 23 develop uniform standards or oversight committees for these of all poor teachers and worse subject matter.” Essentially, programs, resulting in a slew of ineffective training programs Bohannon discovered that vocational schools for black veterans fueled by racist ideology. were content to teach their students less desirable trades and had no motivation to advance their curriculum to the level Vocational Schools found at vocational schools for white students. hile some veterans attempted to secure a position in Unfortunately, some of these vocational schools, particularly an on-the-job training program, others found the idea those that targeted black veterans, were “fly-by-night” schools, Wof a full-time vocational school more appealing. According to vocational programs that had quite literally started overnight the provisions of the GI Bill, veterans enrolled in a vocational with the intention of charging the federal government outra- school would have their tuition paid by the federal government geous tuition rates in exchange for insufficient vocational and receive a monthly stipend to cover living expenses. Voca- training. A number of independent organizations, including tional training qualified as a viable option for those veterans the National Urban League, compared the instruction for who were unable to enter college and, consequently, could blacks in these “fly-by-night” programs with that of vocational not apply their educational benefits to a four year university. schools before the war and found that the newer schools were Among the Army troops during World War II, only 17 per- wholly inefficient and functioning much worse than schools cent of black soldiers had already graduated from high school in 1945. As a result, many black veterans attempted to acquire compared to 41 percent of white soldiers. Because high school vocational training that acted as a barrier to their education. If completion is generally regarded as a prerequisite to college they were successful in enrolling in such programs, they often attendance, it is not surprising that black veterans were less received less than adequate training in fields that did not pro- likely than whites to use their GI benefits to attend college.20 vide high-paying jobs. Thus, as with apprenticeship programs As with occupational training and apprenticeship pro- and occupational placement programs, quality vocational grams, the federal government delegated implementation of education was largely out of reach to black veterans in the vocational school benefits to the states. State-level depart- South. However, the federal government eventually took note ments had the power to regulate the admission requirements of veterans’ difficulties in accessing their GI Bill benefits. to vocational institutions, leading to the widespread confine- Education and the GI Bill ment of black veterans to all-black institutions in the South.21 Horace Bohannon, a field agent for the Southern Regional s early as December 1950 Congress recognized flaws in Council’s Veteran Services Project, visited the Georgia the implementation procedures of the GI Bill, resulting State Industrial College, a vocational school that allegedly Ain the initiation of an investigation to uncover some of the provided the best vocational training for black veterans in most flagrant abuses that had surfaced since the bill’s pas- Georgia, in February 1946. For instance, Bohannon: sage. However, the GI Schools Investigation Committee de- cided to focus its efforts “on the single field of below college …found the classrooms too small to accommo- level training,” simply because “publicity during the past year date many veterans, with the students only receiv- has focused on this phase of the program and because there ing training in some of the less desirable trades. appears to be a widespread belief on the part of the public Meanwhile, white veterans at a nearby school were and many Congressmen, mistaken though that belief may acquiring instruction in such advanced skills as 24 be, that the most flagrant abuses have taken place here.” As radio repair, diesel engineering, and electrical appli- such, while this committee explored in great detail abuses ance restoration. Bohannon reported that when he within the realm of the vocational schools and on-the-job asked Benjamin Franklin Hubert, the president of training programs, it did not address issues within the sphere the college, whether he was planning to get permis- of higher education. Determining the mechanisms whereby sion from the state to develop advanced training such abuses occurred would certainly illustrate some issues courses, Hubert recoiled at the suggestion and surrounding devolution. Moreover, determining whether all displayed his ‘Uncle Tommishness’ by insisting that veterans had equal access to their education benefits would he already knew very well what type of training the add to the existing body of knowledge regarding the legacy veterans wanted. According to Hubert, the school of the GI Bill of 1944.

116 Smith The G.I. Bill provided unprecedented educational benefits agency, or State apprenticeship agency, or any educational or for returning veterans, including tuition payment of “$500 training institution.”31 As such, states had complete author- per year for up to 4 years plus a living allowance of $50 to $75 ity to administer these benefits without oversight from the per month.”25 Under these provisions, the government would federal government. be responsible for all expenses related to a veteran’s enroll- For a number of reasons, the provisions of the GI Bill ment in a college or university. At the time the government discouraged the enrollment of black veterans in institutions created these benefits, the degree to which returning soldiers of higher education. Because the initial education of African- would utilize these benefits was largely unknown. A series of Americans was generally inferior to that of their white coun- three surveys conducted by the War Department attempted terparts, black veterans were less able to meet the educational to ascertain veterans’ plans to utilize their benefits. The first requirements for entry into colleges and universities as out- found that 7 percent planned to return full time to school or lined by the GI Bill.32 As such, many African-American vet- college; another concluded that around 8 percent of veterans erans had a compelling reason not to utilize their education would become students; and the last determined that be- benefits: insufficient academic preparation. The separate-but- 26 tween 8 and 12 percent of all veterans would attend college. equal elementary and high schools available to most blacks The actual number of people that benefited from the before World War II were not equal at all. Service records on educational benefits of the GI Bill surpassed initial esti- the educational levels of servicemen in World War II reveal mates. Approximately 2.2 million veterans used their GI Bill that, as a group, African-Americans had completed fewer education benefits to attend college or university and 110,000 years of school and had higher illiteracy rates than white more veterans who had failed to complete high school before recruits.33 Because African-American soldiers were not af- entering service had returned to high school to earn their forded the same quality elementary and secondary education diplomas.”27 Scholars generally consider the enrollment of as white soldiers, they were less able to meet the requirements veterans in institutions of secondary and higher education as for admission to post-secondary institutions of learning. an indication of the success of the GI Bill. These claims are The provisions of the bill did not eliminate the prejudices supported by an oft-cited study by Norman Frederiksen and of educational institutions. That is, schools that refused to W.B. Schrader conducted in 1951 that found that 20 percent admit individuals because of their race were not required to of the freshmen college veterans surveyed were greatly amend this practice. Nevertheless, a number of black veterans 28 influenced by the GI Bill when deciding to enter college. were able to pursue higher education. Those residing in the A significant number of veterans that used their educational South had no choice but to enroll in one of about one hundred benefits would have been unable to attend institutions of historically black colleges or universities which, because of the higher learning had those benefits not been made available to prevailing separate-but-equal doctrine, were small, under- them through the GI Bill. funded, and certainly unprepared for the drastic increases in The education provisions of the GI Bill of 1944 contributed enrollment, a notion that calls into question the quality of to positive socioeconomic outcomes for veterans. A study education received by those veterans enrolled in these institu- conducted by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress tions.34 As such, black veterans’ access to higher education and estimates that veterans utilizing their GI Bill benefits earned the quality of the education available to them is unclear. between $10,000 and $15,000 more per year than their In analyzing access to higher education, one must con- nonveteran counterparts, supporting the GI Bill’s reputation sider the broader context of Southern politics, as control 29 as “the best investment the U.S. government has ever made.” of black education might easily be equated with control of A recent study of the educational attainment of World War II the black population.35 That is, limiting access to education veterans versus their nonveteran counterparts utilizes an esti- may have been used as a way to limit the social and political mation strategy to analyze the educational outcomes of men influence of the black population. In examining the persis- born between 1915 and 1929. The findings of this study -in tence of white supremacy throughout the South, political dicate that military service and GI Bill benefits are correlated scientist V.O. Key argues that the “hard core of the political with more years of education, indicating the positive impact South—the backbone of southern political unity—is made 30 of the GI Bill on the educational attainment of veterans. up of those counties and sections of the southern states in Implementation of Education Provisions which Negroes constitute a substantial proportion of the population. In these areas a real problem of politics, broadly s with the other major elements of the GI Bill, Congress considered, is the maintenance of control by a white minor- empowered state and local agencies to administer these ity.”36 Key contends that the politics of the South in areas Abenefits. Indeed, the GI Bill actually limited the power of with large black populations revolves around the white federal agents in overseeing the education provisions, declar- minority’s ability to control the black majority. Indeed, he ing, “No department, agency, or officer of the United States, argues that such control is crucial to the upkeep of white in carrying out the provisions of this part, shall exercise any political, economic, and social supremacy throughout the supervision or control, whatsoever, over any State educational South. Control of higher education constitutes one way that Smith 117 white minorities may have attempted to limit the political, describing the process whereby political actions impacted the economic, and social power of the larger black population. potential beneficiaries of federal legislation. This study hypothesizes that the devolution of the GI Bill Data of 1944 permitted local agencies and mid-level bureaucrats to undermine the provisions of the Bill by prioritizing racial xamining the implementation of the GI Bill of 1944 as hierarchies over equal access to higher education, resulting in it relates to devolution requires analysis of the state-lev- fewer educational opportunities for black veterans and lower elE differences in access to higher education for black veterans. quality education for those black veterans that were able to Table 1 displays the rate of black enrollment as a percentage enter a college or university. of the total veteran population in higher education. Ad- Methodology ditionally, it displays the rate of black veteran enrollment as employ a quantitative strategy to explore the im- Table 1: Black Veteran Representation in Higher Education38 pact that devolution of the GI Bill of 1944 had Ion the educational attainment of black veterans. Specifically, the statistical regression employed in this study seeks to establish variance among states with regard to the representation of black veter- ans enrolled in institutions of higher education. Additionally, the regression attempts to attribute this variance to certain qualities of the states. This statistical analysis demonstrates that state-level variance is significant, indicating that devolution played an important role in the distribution of educational benefits to veterans of World War II. Statistical Analysis Strategy

opulation statistics and rates of enrollment for black vet- compared to the total black population. This ratio demon- erans were used to determine the degree to which black strates the degree to which black veterans are represented in veteransP were equitably represented in institutions of higher higher education, with values closer to 1 demonstrating more education. Rates of black veteran enrollment were then equitable representation. regressed against a number of characteristics that provide in- The values conveying Black Veteran Representation in sight into why a state might be more or less willing to support Higher Education attest to variance within the experiences black veteran education.These independent variables include of black veterans at the state level, with some states, such the overall African-American population, the percentage of as West Virginia and Delaware, achieving nearly equitable the population employed in the armed forces, the number of veterans pursing higher education, the amount of federal aid representation. The large range of these values indicates a received for education, affiliation with the democratic party, significant difference in the degree to which veterans could and the percentage of institutions of higher education open access higher education. to African- American students. 37 Once correlated with the To examine the significance of the independent variables aforementioned measure of enrollment of black veterans in in predicting the value of the dependent variable, in this higher education, the regression analysis will establish that case, black veteran representation in higher education, this states supported black veteran education to different degrees. study employed a multiple regression model. The indepen- Taken together, the statistical analysis of black veteran dent variables for this analysis include the black population representation in higher education and a state-level case study in 1940, the percentage of the population employed in the provide a clear picture of how implementation practices un- armed forces, the percentage of veterans enrolled in institu- der the GI Bill of 1944 resulted in widely varying outcomes tions of higher education, the amount of federal aid received for black veterans. In describing the state of education for in thousands of dollars, the percentage of the population vot- black veterans and demonstrating the political mechanisms ing for the Democratic Party in the 1940, 1944, 1948, and that contributed to such a state, this study seeks to provide 1952 presidential elections, the percentage of the population a complete picture of the sociopolitical factors contributing voting for the States’ Rights Democratic Party in 1948, and to the difficulties black veterans faced in accessing educa- the percentage of institutions of higher education open to tion under the GI Bill. Essentially, the synergy of these two black students. Table 2 provides basic descriptive informa- methodologies enhances the broader claims of this study by tion about these variables. 118 Smith Table 2: Descriptive Statistics Table 2: Descriptive Statistics Table 3 also indicates a very strong positive correlation between a state’s black population and the percentage of that Mean Std. Deviation N state voting for the Democratic Party in presidential elec- Black Rep 0.34708529 0.208261898 17 tions. The correlation values for the years 1940 and 1944 are Negro 40 0.2516 0.1266287 17 0.905 and 0.930, respectively, and both demonstrate signifi- Armed Forces 0.0124667 0.0111731 17 cance values of 0.000. These particular correlations strongly Vets HE 0.0057333 0.0012228 17 support V.O. Key’s black-belt hypothesis, which states that FedEdu 1.77E+03 678.856419 17 whites in areas with high concentrations of the black popula- Dem 40 0.7416 0.14218037 17 tion will react more strongly against the black population, in Dem 48 0.4468 0.19484177 17 this case, by strongly supporting the Democratic Party which Dem 44 0.6921333 0.13507716 17 was, at this time, known for its repression of the black popu- SR 48 0.2559333 0.30593591 17 lation. In other words, this correlation indicates that as the Dem 52 0.5224 0.07635799 17 black population increases, the percentage of the population HBCU 0.2118667 0.11992073 17 voting for the segregationist Democratic Party also increases.

The particular correlation between party politics and Table 3 indicates the value of the simple correlations of Table 3 indicates the value of the simple correlations of these variables withthe one black another, population is further solidified when examining these variables with one another, and with the dependent the 1948 presidential election, in which the States’ Rights and with the dependentvariable, variable, black blackrepresentation representation in higher in highereducation. education. Of the Of the independentDemocratic Party emerged within the South as an extreme independent variables tested, the percentage of institutions version of the Democratic Party. In this particular election variables tested, theof percentage higher education of institutions open to blackof higher students education demonstrates open to a black studentsyear, states supporting the States’ Rights Democratic Party strong positive correlation with the dependent variable. This identified more with segregationist and supremacist aims demonstrates a strongcorrelation positive is correlation statistically with significant, the dependent with a variable.significance This correlationthan did is those voting for the Democratic Party. In other value of 0.015. This finding indicates that those states that words, for the year 1948, the support of the Democratic statistically significant, with a significance value of 0.015. This finding indicates that those states maintained more institutions for black students observed Party indicated a rejection of the extreme ideology of the States’ Rights Democratic Party. Table 4 indicates a strong higher enrollment of black veterans in the years following that maintained more institutions for black students observed higher enrollment of positiveblack veterans correlation of 0.860 between the black population World War II. Although this finding seems logical, it at- and the percentage of a state voting for the States’ Rights tests to the fact that state-level differences in the treatment in the years following World War II. Although this finding seems logical, it attestsDemocratic to the fact Party, and a strong negative correlation of -0.684 of black institutions may have influenced the educational that state-level differences in the treatment of black institutions may have influencedbetween the the black population and the percentage of a state’s outcomes of black veterans. population voting for the Democratic Party in 1948. Both of Table 3: Simple Correlations educational outcomesTable of black 3: Simple veterans. Correlations

Armed Pearson Correlation: Black Rep Negro 40 Forces Vets HE FedEdu Dem 40 Dem 48 Dem 44 SR 48 Dem 52 HBCU Black Rep 1.000 -0.257 0.053 -0.284 -0.276 -0.298 0.106 -0.295 -0.276 -0.133 0.563 Negro 40 -0.257 1.000 0.045 -0.325 -0.004 0.905 -0.684 0.930 0.860 0.558 0.348 Armed Forces 0.053 0.045 1.000 0.177 0.162 -0.014 0.165 -0.065 -0.203 -0.369 -0.504 Vets HE -0.284 -0.325 0.177 1.000 0.631 -0.148 0.283 -0.204 -0.294 -0.246 -0.456 FedEdu -0.276 -0.004 0.162 0.631 1.000 0.295 0.091 0.257 0.076 0.089 -0.429 Dem 40 -0.298 0.905 -0.014 -0.148 0.295 1.000 -0.547 0.981 0.827 0.559 0.235 Dem 48 0.106 -0.684 0.165 0.283 0.091 -0.547 1.000 -0.614 -0.905 -0.358 -0.476 Dem 44 -0.295 0.930 -0.065 -0.204 0.257 0.981 -0.614 1.000 0.871 0.629 0.290 SR 48 -0.276 0.860 -0.203 -0.294 0.076 0.827 -0.905 0.871 1.000 0.536 0.403 Dem 52 -0.133 0.558 -0.369 -0.246 0.089 0.559 -0.358 0.629 0.536 1.000 0.374 HBCU 0.563 0.348 -0.504 -0.456 -0.429 0.235 -0.476 0.290 0.403 0.374 1.000 Sig. (1-tailed): Black Rep 0.177 0.425 0.153 0.160 0.140 0.353 0.143 0.160 0.319 0.015 Negro 40 0.177 0.437 0.119 0.494 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.000 0.015 0.102 Armed Forces 0.425 0.437 0.264 0.282 0.481 0.278 0.409 0.234 0.088 0.028 Vets HE 0.153 0.119 0.264 0.006 0.299 0.153 0.233 0.143 0.189 0.044 FedEdu 0.160 0.494 0.282 0.006 0.143 0.373 0.177 0.394 0.376 0.055 Dem 40 0.140 0.000 0.481 0.299 0.143 0.017 0.000 0.000 0.015 0.200 Dem 48 0.353 0.002 0.278 0.153 0.373 0.017 0.007 0.000 0.095 0.036 Dem 44 0.143 0.000 0.409 0.233 0.177 0.000 0.007 0.000 0.006 0.147 SR 48 0.16016 0.000 0.234 0.143 0.394 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.020 0.068 Dem 52 0.319 0.015 0.088 0.189 0.376 0.015 0.095 0.006 0.020 0.085 HBCU 0.015 0.405 0.028 0.044 0.055 0.200 0.036 0.147 0.068 0.085

Smith 119 Table 3 also indicates a very strong positive correlation between a state’s black population and the percentage of that state voting for the Democratic Party in presidential

elections. The correlation values for the years 1940 and 1944 are 0.905 and 0.930, respectively, and both demonstrate significance values of 0.000. These particular correlations strongly support V.O. Key’s black-belt hypothesis, which states that whites in areas with high concentrations of the black population will react more strongly against the black population, in this case, by strongly supporting the Democratic Party which was, at this time, known for its repression of the black population. In other words, this correlation indicates that as the black population increases, the percentage of the population voting for the segregationist Democratic Party also increases.

The particular correlation between party politics and the black population is further solidified when examining the 1948 presidential election, in which the States’ Rights Democratic

17 these correlations are statistically significant. provides support for the idea that the way a state treats its These two correlations further demonstrate V.O. Key’s schools for blacks has a very real impact on access to educa- central claims, that those states with larger blackinstitutions popula- of highertion education for black were veterans. able Statesto provide that spendeducation more access money to or more black veterans tions would take more measures to repress that population. effort to maintain their black institutions of higher education Indeed, as the black population increased, the thanpercentage those states thatwere did able not tomaintain provide as education many colleges access to or more universities black veterans for black students. of a state’s population voting for the ideologically extreme than those states that did not maintain as many colleges or States’ Rights Democratic Party also increased. On the The other summary universities of this model, for black as displayedstudents. in Table 4 indicates the large statistical hand, the smaller the black population, the more likely that The summary of this model, as displayed in Table 4 indi- state was to vote for the less extreme Democraticsignificance Party. Es- of the aforementionedcates the large statistical independent significance variables of onthe black aforementioned representation in higher sentially, this particular table demonstrates thateducation. the size of Additionally, independent a number variables of elements on black within representation the model in confirm higher V.O.edu- Key’s hypothesis a state’s black population is related to the degree to which a cation. Additionally, a number of elements within the model state’s population supported a political party knownthat whites for its in black-beltconfirm areas, V.O. those Key’s with hypothesis very high that concentrations whites in black-belt of black people as compared racist ideology. areas, those with very high concentrations of black people as Table 4 indicates that three of the model’s independentto white people, demonstratecompared tohigher white entrenchment people, demonstrate in southern higher conservatism entrenchment meant to repress and variables are statistically significant, including the black in southern conservatism meant to repress and disenfranchise disenfranchise the black population. population in 1940, the percentage of veterans in higher the black population. education, and the percentage of colleges or universities The open simple correlationsThe simple displayed correlations in Tabledisplayed 4 also in indicateTable 4 alsoa very indicate strong a correlation to black students. very strong correlation cluster between the percentage of the cluster between thepopulation percentage voting of the for population the Democratic voting Partyfor the in Democratic various elec -Party in various Table 4: Coefficients tion years. That is, because each of these independent election years. That is, becausevariables each isof highly these independentcorrelated with variables another is nearly highly correlated with identical variable, the overall effect of these variables another nearly identical variable,may be the overstated overall effect in the of aforementioned these variables multiple may be overstated in the aforementioned multiple regressionregression model. model. To To address address this this issue, issue, thisthis studystudy employed a second employed a second multiple regression, that included multiple regression, that includedall of the all original of the original independent independent variables variables except for except for the the Democratic Party affiliation for the presidential Democratic Party affiliationyears for the1940, presidential 1944, and years1952. 1940,In other 1944, words, and this 1952. In other words, this second model only drew upon election results for the second model only drew uponpresidential election election results forof 1948. the presidential A description election of the of 1948. A description variables used in this subsequent analysis is listed in of the variables used in this subsequent analysis is listed in Table 5. Table 5. Table 5: Descriptive Statistics Table 5: Descriptive Statistics

The black population in 1940 variable has a negative coef- Mean Std. Deviation N ficient, indicating that as the population increases, the black Black Rep 0.34708529 0.208261898 17 representation in higher education decreases. This finding Negro 40 0.2516 0.1266287 17 once again confirms V.O. Key’s black-belt hypothesis, as it Armed Forces 0.0124667 0.0111731 17 demonstrates yet another way that a small white popula- Vets HE 0.0057333 0.0012228 17 tion might work to repress a larger black population—by FedEdu 1.77E+03 678.865419 17 limiting access to education. The percentage of veterans in Dem 48 0.4468 0.19484177 17 higher education also has a negative coefficient, indicating SR 48 0.2559333 0.30593591 17 that as the total number of veterans enrolled in colleges or HBCU 0.2118667 0.11992073 17 universities increases, black representation in those institu- tions decreases. This seems to suggest that although veterans This particular This year particularwas selected year becausewas selected it is thebecause only it year is the in whichonly year the States’ Rights overall may have had access to education benefits, blacks did in which the States’ Rights Democratic Party was on the bal- not have the same level of access as their whiteDemocratic counterparts, Party waslot. onBecause the ballot. of the Because significant of the political significant differences political between differences between as an increase in the presence of white veterans in institutions these two parties, this election year should clearly indicate these two parties, this election year should clearly indicate the degree to which a state was indicates a decrease in the presence of black veterans in those the degree to which a state was affiliated with traditional institutions. Finally, the percentage of institutions of higher Southern conservatism or more extreme conservatism that education open to black veterans has a statistically significant sought to repress the black population even further. In other positive coefficient, suggesting that a state with more institu- words, this election year is unique in that its statistical out- tions of higher education for blacks observed higher rates of comes will be very stark, as indicated20 by the extremely high black veteran enrollment. Though unsurprising, this result negative correlation found in the first regression. 120 Smith

affiliated with traditional Southern conservatism or more extreme conservatism that sought to repress the black population even further. In other words, this election year is unique in that its statistical outcomes will be very stark, as indicated by the extremely high negative correlation found in the first regression. The simple correlations of variables in this particular regression model can be found in The simple correlations of variables in this particular strong positive correlation between the black population regressionTable 6. model can be found in Table 6. and the percentage of the state’s population supporting the Table 6: Simple CorrelationsTable 6: Simple Correlations States’ Rights Democratic Party supports the black- belt hypothesis, in that states with higher Armed Pearson Correlation: Black Rep Negro 40 Forces Vets HE FedEdu Dem 48 SR 48 HBCU populations of blacks are likely to support an Black Rep 1.000 -0.257 0.053 -0.284 -0.276 0.106 -0.276 0.563 extremely conservative political party focused Negro 40 -0.257 1.000 0.045 -0.325 -0.004 -0.684 0.860 0.348 on the repression of the black population. Armed Forces 0.053 0.045 1.000 0.177 0.162 0.165 -0.203 -0.504 Vets HE -0.284 -0.325 0.177 1.000 0.631 0.283 -0.294 -0.456 Table 7 shows slightly different results in FedEdu -0.276 -0.004 0.162 0.631 1.000 0.091 0.076 -0.429 Dem 48 0.106 -0.684 0.165 0.283 0.091 1.000 -0.905 -0.476 this second regression than in the first. In this SR 48 -0.276 0.860 -0.203 -0.294 0.076 -0.905 1.000 0.403 particular model, neither the percentage of the HBCU 0.563 0.348 -0.504 -0.456 -0.429 -0.476 0.403 1.000 Sig. (1-tailed): population that is black nor the percentage of Black Rep 0.177 0.425 0.153 0.160 0.353 0.160 0.015 veterans in institutions of higher education is Negro 40 0.177 0.437 0.119 0.494 0.002 0.000 0.102 Armed Forces 0.425 0.437 0.264 0.282 0.278 0.234 0.028 statistically significant. The percentage of the Vets HE 0.153 0.119 0.264 0.006 0.153 0.143 0.044 population employed in the armed forces is, FedEdu 0.160 0.494 0.282 0.006 0.373 0.394 0.055 Dem 48 0.353 0.002 0.278 0.153 0.373 0.000 0.036 however, statistically significant. In this sec- SR 48 0.163 0.000 0.234 0.143 0.394 0.000 0.068 ond model, the percentage of institutions open HBCU 0.015 0.102 0.028 0.044 0.055 0.036 0.068 to black veterans has remained significant. These results indicate that the extent to which The values of the correlations of each variable to every other variable within the study are The values of the correlations of each variable to every a state supports its military or is involved in the military otherthe same variable as in the withinfirst regression, the study suggesting are the that same even with as inthe the removal first of some presidentialmay be related to the access of black veterans to higher edu- regression,years, the percentage suggesting of institutions that even open withto black the students removal remains of somehighly correlatedcation. with black That each of these variables was significant in one of presidentialrepresentation inyears, institutions the percentage of higher education. of institutions In other words, open the significance ofthe this models variable indicates that a state’s relationship to its military to black students remains highly correlated with black may be important in this model, but that the particular despite manipulation of the independent variable suggests that the initial finding of significance representation in institutions of higher education. In other element of that relationship is not fully captured in either of words,was not duethe to significance the conflation of of certain this variables,variable butdespite rather, thatmanipulation this variable is, indeed,these highly independent variables. ofcorrelated the independent with the dependent variable variable suggests regardless that of otherthe initialchanges find-to the model. Additionally,On the other hand, the consistency in the statistical sig- ing of significance was not due to the conflation of certain this model still displays the statistically significant negative correlation between a state’snificance black of the percentage of institutions open to black stu- variables, but rather, that this variable is, indeed, highly dents indicates that this variable is, indeed, related to black correlated with the dependent variable regardless of other veteran representation in higher education. In other words, changes to the model. Additionally, this model still displays 21 the degree to which a state maintains its black institutions the statistically significant negative correlation between a had a very real impact on whether black veterans were able state’s black population and black representation in higher to pursue higher education. The significance of this model education, indicating that states with a higher population is displayed in Table 8 and indicates a very strong relation- of blacks observed lower rates of black veteran enrollment ship between the independent variables and black represen- in institutions of higher education. As hypothesized, the tation in higher education. Table 7: Coefficients

Smith 121 Discussion that are fragmented both politically and administratively, so that the power to make allocation decisions is dispersed verall, the multiple regressions allow for an assessment among many forces. Not only do administrators and officials of the significance of these independent variables as of lower-level governments exercise substantial power over theyO relate to one another. The two models used for this study parochial policies, but such policies are also subject to politi- indicate that despite changes in the independent political cal influence from partial, private interests that respond to variables, the percentage of institutions of higher education 39 narrow local concerns.” The GI Bill of 1944 seems parochial open to blacks is significant when considering black veteran in nature, as evidenced by its delegation of administration to representation in those institutions. This finding demon- lower and lower levels of government that are unchecked by strates that states that are charged with maintaining institu- any central authority. Unfortunately, such parochial legisla- tions of higher education have a direct influence on black vet- tion has very real social, economic, and political implications eran access to education, in that their maintenance of those for individuals that are unable to access benefits. institutions allows more black veterans to access education under the GI Bill, whereas states that do not maintain those The unequal distribution of veteran education benefits in institutions have essentially limited black veterans’ access the late 1940s under the GI Bill of 1944 is a stark example to higher education, despite the presence of their military of the “practice of denying access to African-Americans and benefits. The devolution of the GI Bill of 1944 to the state other racial groups [that] was pervasive, insidious, and deeply embedded within the nation’s K-12 and higher education level thus places the educational outcomes of black veterans 40 in the hands of state actors that may not have been concerned communities.” Indeed, this particular situation represents with the education of blacks at all. That is, varying levels of one of the earliest instances of a federal mandate for equal op- maintenance of education systems for black veterans suggests portunity regardless of race. Understanding how and why this that black veterans trying to enter these systems would expe- mandate was undermined raises questions about the conflict rience different outcomes based on the degree to which their between national interests and regional or state traditions. state cared to maintain black institutions of higher education. More recent studies of higher education continue to strug- Although the language of the federal legislation guaranteed gle with the federal/state conflict. For example, in examining them access to education, the devolution of the bill meant enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that black veterans were subject to the will of their state John B. Williams questions whether the failure of states to government, and those whose state did not invest in black administer higher education according to federal intentions schools faced limited opportunities for higher education. is proof of inevitable failure or of a failed attempt at imple- These regression models have both also statistically sup- mentation. In other words, can states with a highly charged ported the black-belt hypothesis of V.O. Key, which states racial history enact and enforce race neutral policy, or will the that in states with a large black population, the smaller delegation of federal legislation to the state level always result white population will make more efforts to repress the black in disadvantages for racial minorities? Williams continues: “A population. In the political context of the mid-1940s South, mountain of research today emphasizes the important semi- support of the Democratic Party clearly indicates a desire independent role that mid-level government officials play for such repression. Moreover, support for the States’ Rights within policy implementation in large bureaucratic organiza- Democratic Party in election year 1948 further confirms this tions. A major finding of such studies is that so-called street- hypothesis, as that party represented an extreme of Southern and mid-level bureaucrats strongly affect policy outcomes, conservatism that focused on control and repression of the simultaneously interpreting decisions reached by decision makers and taking into account other factors, like their own black population. self-interest.”41 Essentially, “[w]hat is at stake in a discussion The Case Against Devolution of institutional racism is not simply whether it exists by the precise mechanisms by which particular institutions embody he results of this study frame one of the major conse- and make real socially and politically constructed racial dif- quences as a conflict between the intention of federal 42 ferences.” legislationT and state- and local-level interests. If the federal government relinquishes control of social welfare legisla- Conclusion tion to the states without any form of oversight, there is no guarantee that racially discriminatory policies will not inter- lthough the GI Bill of 1944 provided unprecedented fere with the equitable distribution of those benefits. In his socioeconomic opportunities for millions of America’s study of the racial outcomes of New Deal programs, Robert AWorld War II veterans, African-Americans faced a number Lieberman distinguishes between two types of federal pro- of obstacles in accessing their benefits. In demonstrating the grams: national, which are regulated by centralized authori- role of devolution in permitting the manifestation of such ties that operate under uniform administrative guidelines obstacles, this study calls for increased federal oversight of and are insulated from narrow political interests. And, “at social welfare programs, particularly with regard to political the other end of the spectrum are parochial policies, policies issues with which states may have an interest in prioritizing 122 Smith regional interests above federal mandates. An additional layer 22 Onkst, “First a Negro,” 526. of concern exists when a powerful minority group reacts to a 23 Ibid., 528. threat to their power by limiting access to social benefits for 24 United States. Cong. House. House Select Committee to the majority. In maintaining some degree of control over so- Investigate Educational and Training Program Under the cial welfare programs meant to provide benefits for a group, GI Bill. Investigation of GI Schools, by Olin E. Teague. 81st regardless of minority status, the federal government can Cong., 2nd sess. H. Rept. Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1951. work to prevent the promulgation of institutional discrimina- 25 Betsy Bannier, “Join the Conversation: The Impact of the GI tion and instead promote equal access for all. Bill on Developmental Education,” The Learning Assistance Review 11, no. 1 (2006): 35-44. At the time of the imple- 1 “G.I. Bill of Rights.” Time. 3 April 1944. mentation of the GI Bill, $500 per year was enough to cover tuition at the vast majority of institutions, including those in 2 Hilary Herbold, “Never a Level Playing Field: Blacks and the Ivy League. the GI Bill,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 6 (1994): 104-08. 26 Keith W. Olsen, “The GI Bill and Higher Education: Suc- cess and Surprise,” American Quarterly 25, no. 5 (1973): 596- 3 The GI Bill of 1944 earned this reputation because unlike 610. other New Deal legislation it did not explicitly limit the op- portunities of non-whites to take advantage of its provisions. 27 Charles B. Nam, “Impact of the ‘GI Bills’ on the Educa- For an overview of legislative practices that hindered access tional Level of the Male Population,” Social Forces 43, no. 1 of non-whites to the legislation’s benefits, see Ira Katznel- (1964): 26-32. son, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of 28 Ibid., 28. Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005). 29 Herbold, “Never a Level Playing Field.” 4 Herbold, “Never a Level Playing Field,” 104. 30 John Bound and Sarah Turner, “Going to War and Going to College: Did World War II and the G.I. Bill Increase Educa- 5 See Ira Katznelson for an analysis of the racial implications tional Attainment for Returning Veterans?” Journal of Labor of the construction of New Deal legislation, including the GI Economics 20, no. 4 (2002): 784-815. Bill of 1944. 31 Serviceman’s Readjustment Act. 6 Richard A. Musgrave, “Devolution, Grants, and Fiscal Competition,” American Economic Association 11, no. 4 (1997): 32 Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White. 65-72. 33 Humes, Over Here, 229. 7 Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, 78th Cong., Enrolled Acts 34 Ibid. and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1996; General Records of 35 James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South: the United States Government; Record Group 11; National 1860-1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, Archives. (1944) (enacted). 1988). 8 Edward Humes, Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the 36 V. O. Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York: American Dream (Orlando: Harcourt, 2006). A. A. Knopf, 1949). 9 Suzanne Mettler, “‘The Only Good Thing Was the G.I. 37 For this particular variable, the percentage of the state’s Bill’: Effects of the Education and Training Provisions on population voting for the Democratic Party in the Presi- African-American Veterans’ Political Participation.” Studies dential election was used. The prevalence of the all-white in American Political Development 19 (2005): 31-52. Democratic primary and close alignment of the Democratic 10 Humes, Over Here, 229. Party with segregationist ideology makes this factor a suit- 11 Onkst, David. “‘First a Negro... Incidentally a Veteran’: able independent variable for this study. Although black voter Black World War Two Veterans and the G. I. Bill of Rights turnout for Presidential election years would likely be a better in the Deep South, 1944-1948.” Journal of Social History 31, measure of the degree to which a state has disenfranchised no. 3 (1998): 517-43. the black population, a comprehensive measure of this for all Southern states was not available. 12 Herbold, “Never a Level Playing Field,” 106. 38 For Table 1, Columns 1 and 2 are raw numbers taken from 13 Onkst, “First a Negro,” 520. the Statistical Abstracts of the US (1948) and Martin D. 14 Herbold, “Never a Level Playing Field,” 106. Jenkins’ 1947 report. Column 3 is calculated by dividing Column 2 by Column 1. Column 4 is raw data from the 15 Onkst, “First a Negro,” 521. Statistical Abstracts of the US (1945). Column 5 is calculated 16 Onkst, Ibid., 522. by dividing Column 3 by Column 4. 17 Humes, Over Here, 230. 39 Robert C. Liberman, Shifting the Color Line: Race and the 18 Onkst, “First a Negro,” 524. American Welfare State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 19 Onkst, Ibid. 525. 40 John B. Williams, Race Discrimination in Public Higher 20 Ira Katznelson and Suzanne Mettler, “On Race and Policy Education: Interpreting Federal Civil Rights Enforcement, 1964- History: A Dialogue about the G.I. Bill,” Perspectives on 1996 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997). Politics 6, no. 3 (2008): 519-37. 41 Ibid., 37. 21 Ibid., 522. 42 Lieberman, Shifting the Color Line, 12. Smith 123 Bibliography groes, 1946-1947.” Journal of Negro Education 16, no. 2 (1947): 224-32. Anderson, James D. The Education of Blacks in the South: 1860-1935. ------. “Enrollment in Institutions of Higher Education for Ne- Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. groes, 1947-1948.” Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 2 (1948): Atkins, James A. “Educational Institutions and the Veterans’ Edu- 206-15. cational Facilities Program.” Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 2 ------. “Enrollment in Institutions of Higher Education for Ne- (1948): 141-53. groes, 1948-1949.” Journal of Negro Education 18, no. 4 (1949): Bannier, Betsy. “Join the Conversation: The Impact of the GI Bill on 568-75. Developmental Education.” The Learning Assistance Review 11, Katznelson, Ira. When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold no. 1 (2006): 35-44. History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. New Bound, John, and Sarah Turner. “Closing the Gap or Widening York: W.W. Norton, 2005. the Divide: The Effects of the G.I. Bill and World War II on Katznelson, Ira, and Suzanne Mettler. “On Race and Policy His- the Educational Outcomes of Black Americans.” The Journal of tory: A Dialogue about the G.I. Bill.” Perspectives on Politics 6, Economic History 63, no. 1 (2003): 145-77. no. 3 (2008): 519-37. ------. “Going to War and Going to College: Did World War II Key, V. O. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: A. A. and the G.I. Bill Increase Educational Attainment for Return- Knopf, 1949. ing Veterans?” Journal of Labor Economics 20, no. 4 (2002): 784-815. Lieberman, Robert C. Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Brooks, Jennifer E. Defining the Peace: World War II Veterans, Race, and the Remaking of Southern Political Tradition. Chapel Hill: Mettler, Suzanne. “Bringing the State Back in to Civic Engage- University of North Carolina, 2004. ment: Policy Feedback Effects of the G.I. Bill for World War II Veterans.” The American Political Science Review 96, no. 2 (2002): Bullock, Charles S., and Jessica L. McClellan. “The County Boss 351-65. in Statewide Elections: A Multivariate Analysis of Georgia’s Bifactional Politics.” Politics and Policy 32, no. 4 (2004): 740-55. ------. ““The Only Good Thing Was the G.I. Bill”: Effects of the Education and Training Provisions on African-American Cook, James F. “The Eugene Talmadge-Walter Cocking Contro- Veterans’ Political Participation.” Studies in American Political versy.” Phylon 35, no. 2 (1974): 181-92. Development 19, no. 1 (2005): 31-52. Daniel, Walter G. “Negro Higher and Professional Education in Musgrave, Richard A. “Devolution, Grants, and Fiscal Competi- Virginia.” Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 3 (1948): 382-92. tion.” American Economic Association 11, no. 4 (1997): 65-72. Ellison, Christopher G. “Military Background, Racial Orientations, Nam, Charles B. “Impact of the ‘GI Bills’ on the Educational Level and Political Participation Among Black Adult Males.” Social of the Male Population.” Social Forces 43, no. 1 (1964): 26-32. Science Quarterly 73 (1992): 360-78. Oliver, Melvin L., and Thomas M. Shapiro. Black Wealth, White Feldman, Glenn, ed. Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. New York, in the Modern South. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama NY: Routledge, 2006. Press, 2004. Olson, Keith W. “The GI Bill and Higher Education: Success and Georgia. Free Tuition; Colored and White Children Separate; Admission Surprise.” American Quarterly 25, no. 5 (1973): 596-610. of Veterans of World War II. 1947. HB 32-937. Reddick, L. D. “The Education of Negroes in States Where Sepa------. Veterans Education Reorganization Act. 1949. HB 78-4. rate Schools Are Not Legal.” Journal of Negro Education 16, no. “G.I. Bill of Rights.” Time. 3 Apr. 1944. 3 (1947): 290-300. Herbold, Hilary. “Never a Level Playing Field: Blacks and the GI Reedy, Sidney J. “Negro Higher and Professional Education in Bill.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 6 (1994): 104-08. Missouri.” Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 3 (1948): 321-34. Hovey, Harold A. Can the States Afford Devolution? The Fiscal Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, 78th Cong., Enrolled Acts and Implications of Shifting Federal Responsibilities to State and Local Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1996; General Records of the Governments. New York: Century Foundation, 1999. United States Government; Record Group 11; National Ar- “How the GI Bill Widened the Racial Higher Education Gap.” The chives. (1944) (enacted). Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 41 (2003): 36-37. United States. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Department of Com- Humes, Edward. “How the G.I. Bill Shunted Veterans Into Voca- merce. Statistical Abstracts of the United States. Vol. 67. 1945. tional Training.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 53 United States. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Department of Com- (2006): 92-104. merce. Statistical Abstracts of the United States. Vol. 70. 1948. Humes, Edward. Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the United States. Cong. House. House Select Committee to Inves- American Dream. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. tigate Educational and Training Program Under the GI Bill. Jenkins, Martin D. “Enrollment in Institutions of Higher Education Investigation of GI Schools, by Olin E. Teague. 81st Cong., for Negroes, 1944-1945.” Journal of Negro Education 14, no. 2 2nd sess. H. Rept. Washington DC: Government Printing (1945): 238-44. Office, 1951. ------. “Enrollment in Institutions of Higher Education for Ne- Williams, John B. Race Discrimination in Public Higher Education: groes, 1945-1946.” Journal of Negro Education 15, no. 2 (1946): Interpreting Federal Civil Rights Enforcement, 1964-1996. West- 231-39. port, CT: Praeger, 1997. ------. “Enrollment in Institutions of Higher Education for Ne- 124 Smith

Biographies of the Authors for The Inquiry Kimberly L. Daily is a senior from Houston, Texas. Her experience with the Mel- lon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship has been absolutely integral to her growth as a scholar and activist while at Washington University, and she is forever indebted to the program for that dynamic opportunity. She says, When I was not working tire- lessly on my Mellon research, I spent my time on campus leading the women’s club basketball team, singing loudly in Visions Gospel Choir, engaging with the St. Louis community through Chimes Junior Honorary, and mentoring young women through Harambee Christian Ministries. After I graduate, I will be working in St. Louis with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, an interdenominational, student-led ministry.

Naia Honey Ferguson is a 21-year-old Harlem native currently living in Arverne, New York. She will receive her degree in Psychology in May, following a long interest in clinical psychology and talk therapy. While she originally planned to pursue either a Ph.D. or Psy.D. in clinical psychology to become a psychologist in New York City public high schools, Naia has developed an intense interest in and love for linguistics. She now plans to take a year off before going on to graduate school for sociolinguis- tics, specifically looking at African American Vernacular English (AAVE). She plans to research the use of AAVE in pop culture, especially in television and music. Her current research goals are to expand upon her current work on the word “nigga” and to perform some sort of analysis on Jay-Z’s lyricism, fame, and use of AAVE.

Thomas Hernandez is a senior from San Antonio, Texas, majoring in Anthropology and International Studies, and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology. Directed by Dr. James Wertsch, his project is titled “Knowledge, State, and Society” and considers the ef- fects of political development initiatives in the post-Soviet state of Azerbaijan. Region- ally he is interested in social and political change occurring in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and more particularly political development efforts initiated by exogenous state actors. His current topical interests are in the cultural dimensions of corruption, aid and development implementation, and the complexity imbued in rapidly changing post- Soviet regions. The MMUF program has excited him about the possibility of pursuing a doctoral degree in Cultural Anthropology within the next two years.

Maria Santos is a senior majoring in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, with mi- nors in Latin American Studies and Psychology. She was born in Peru and immigrat- ed to Queens, New York, when she was eight years old. She is interested in the way that sex and gender create and inform various social structures and individual agency. Her Mellon research focuses on the scholarly and journalistic writing about women in the Shining Path, a Communist revolutionary group from Peru (1980-2002). Her intimate relations with various Peruvian women inspired her research. Maria hopes to use her privileged education to continue to focus on and help populations that have been systematically marginalized and misrepresented.

Monica Smith, a senior Political Science major, hails from Dallas, Texas. Her aca- demic interests include American politics, policies affecting educational opportuni- ties, and veterans’ legislation. “Jim Crow’s Middle Class” explores the intersection of socioeconomic mobility and education policy in post-World War II America. In her spare time, Monica enjoys volunteering with the Campus YMCA and the Saint Louis Family Court Mentoring program. Monica hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Political Science at Columbia University in the near future.

126